


Reaching for the Sky with Empty Hands

by Lavavulture



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canonical Child Abuse, Dirty Talk, Extremely Dubious Consent, IN SPACE!, M/M, Minor Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-20
Updated: 2016-10-16
Packaged: 2018-04-05 07:38:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 11
Words: 35,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4171479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lavavulture/pseuds/Lavavulture
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Out in the deep reaches of space, Cole is a mage pilot for the Inquisition, flying a spiritship summoned from the Fade.  When his longtime handler is injured in a freak accident, Cole is quickly assigned a temporary handler so that the Inquisition won't have to fight without his sneaky stealth ship.  Dog is his new handler, friendly but uninterested in anything but temporary assignments.  That is until he meets an awkward, bright-eyed mage who talks to ships like they're people and listens to them better than he listens to his superiors.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> While I was home sick with the flu I watched a ton of space stuff because I fucking love space stuff. Thus this is the most self-indulgent thing I've ever written and I've written fuck-or-die. A little groundwork here, spiritships are spirits summoned from the Fade that take the form of awesome spaceships. Mages pilot them under the watchful eyes of their handlers, non-magical people that form close bonds with both the mages and the ships. Most of the DA prejudices are still in play in this world but with the added sprinkling of SPACE on top. Also Vaughan Kendells is the perfect bad guy because we can all agree that he's absolute fucking shit. 
> 
> This is also my first time trying to write the original Cole and it's interesting trying to figure out where he'd be different and where he's probably the same.

“I certainly don’t mind telling you that I don’t think this is a good idea. That ship should be taken down to scraps and the boy should be quarantined until his handler has fully recovered!” 

“Your objections are noted, High Chancellor. Again.” Cassandra’s lips slid down into a near snarl as Roderick sat heavily down behind his desk. He glared at the two men sitting in front of him like they were the cause of all of the misery in the world, which Dog didn’t really think was fair in his case.

He was doing the Chantry a favor by coming to the Orlesian territories to temporarily babysit one of the Inquisitor’s mages. It wasn’t the Inquisition squadron he objected to, of course, but he couldn’t stand Orlais on the best of days and it had been hit heavily by the Venatori for the past few months.

“Nobody’s scrapping one of my ships,” Inquisitor Lavellan said sharply, her tanned face darker in her irritation. The blood red vallaslin on her face helped make her appear more fearsome than usual as she glared at Roderick. “And Cole is my best stealth pilot. You think I’m prepared to lose a valuable support ship right now?”

Beside Dog the stealth pilot in question sunk deeper in his chair. Cole was wearing an oversized hoodie that covered most of his face but Dog had gotten the faint impression at their introduction of ragged blond hair and pale skin. He was around Dog’s own age but his poor posture and awkward demeanor made him seem younger.

It was hard to believe that he was such a gifted mage pilot but Cole had flown the Compassion for almost three years now with the Inquisition, unquestionably one of the best fleets in the Chantry’s command. 

Most people attributed his talent to his handler, the wealthy and powerful Vaughan Kendells, who stood in line to be the next Arl of Denerim. Dog was surprised that an arl’s son would want to handle a spiritship that wasn’t on the frontlines since most of the nobility loved the fame that accompanied handling a mage with a destructive spiritship.

Of course since Cole’s spiritship had badly injured Kendells on their last run and the young mage had used up almost all of his tremendous healing abilities to keep him alive on the way back to Skyhold, Dog supposed support ships could be an adventure as well.

“Do you think that ship will be fit to leave the dock when you need it? And we’re assuming that Mr. Levet will even be compatible with the boy.” Roderick was looking at Cole like he couldn’t imagine that such a thing would be possible.

“Compatibility is what Mr. Levet excels at,” Leliana said shortly.

Dog grinned lazily. “It’s true. I’m likeable.”

“Compatibility and a willingness to be reassigned at a moment’s notice.” Cassandra fixed Dog with such a disapproving look that he felt like a naughty student.

“Also true,” he agreed easily. No sense in taking offense with the brass. 

He tried to fix a charming smile on Cole but the mage was too busy staring at nothing as hard as he could. Dog wasn’t really worried about compatibility since most of the mages he’d handled before were talented in their own rights and really just needed someone to keep them steady while in flight. And he’d met very few people that weren’t open to having a brief, enjoyable affair with an attentive stranger. However he did wish that Cole would at least look at him before agreeing to live and sleep with him for the next few months. 

“Don’t worry about the spiritship, High Chancellor.” Lavellan crossed her arms. “I’ve got my best people working on it. Whatever little hiccup happened last time won’t happen again.”

“Little hiccups don’t almost fry people’s brains, Inquisitor. You should really take this more seriously!”

“Oh, I do.” Lavellan turned her head to watch Cole stare into space. “I’m taking this whole matter very seriously. I want to know what happened to Kendells as much as you do.”

Cole actually focused on the tall elf for a moment at that statement and then looked down to the ground, causing his hood to fall even more over his pointed face.

“Cole, please show Mr. Levet the ship and then find your new quarters,” Cassandra said. 

“Yes,” Cole said softly, the first time Dog had heard his voice since they’d met. It was nice.

 

As they walked down the hallways to the main hangers Dog tried to find a topic of conversation that would get Cole talking for more than a few hesitant words. They were going to have to find common ground if they were going to be compatible in his ship, which might be hard if Cole never wanted to talk to him.

He might just be nervous about forming a new bond, even if it was just temporary. Dog had long since gotten used to tumbling into bed with powerful strangers to form strong enough temporary bonds for flight but he supposed someone who had been handled exclusively by the same person for years would be unsettled by the idea. That was fine. He was good at easing tension.

“Nice of the Inquisition to give the other fleets such flash accommodations,” Dog said admiringly. Skyhold was a magnificent base, ancient as the original elves who summoned it and more elegant than a place had the right to be when it mostly kept warships. 

“Yes. Skyhold likes having the others here. It feels like progress, hard-won and heartening,” Cole said and then ducked his head. “I’m sorry. It’s not important what Skyhold feels.”

“Course it is. I’d talk to this place if I thought she’d talk back.” Dog winked at him and was pleased when he flushed slightly under his hood.

“I talk too much,” Cole said distantly, still staring ahead with blank eyes.

Dog frowned. He would have contested that idea if they didn’t immediately go through the hanger doors where the spiritships were spread out like glistening jewels, bringing him to an amazed halt.

Among the few random Chantry-sanctioned ships were three main fleets. One was the Inquisition’s own fleet, housed in the back of the hanger and that’s where Cole headed towards. As Dog followed him he admired all the ships he’d only ever read about before. 

Near the front was the Warden’s camp, spread around a wide area. The Warden-Commander Amell’s bright golden ship was nestled in the middle of the fleet and covered with symbols of the Grey Wardens. On one side sat the rounded and pristine Faith, a legacy ship now piloted by the son of its original summoner. The mage in question waved to Cole in a friendly way as he walked by and Cole smiled so slightly that Dog almost missed it. To the other side was a Dalish ship, green and spiked and menacing. Far off in the corner was the infamous Witch of the Wild’s ship, which looked like it’d been scrapped together over the years from several ships and was covered in shiny adornments and odd statues. 

Dog was charmed when he spotted the Warden’s newest spiritship tucked up close to the Witch’s ship, a tiny vessel summoned at an uncommonly early age by her son. It would still be years before the child would be assigned a handler and given permission to fly his ship but it was sweet to see the spiritship’s early attempts to shape itself to fit its mage. It was trying to resemble the Warden’s dog but it clearly didn’t realize that Mabari hounds couldn’t float several feet off the ground. The boy was standing straight-backed beside his ship, talking to it quietly while his mother watched the bustle of the hanger with sharp eyes.

The Warden had once had another ship but he’d lost Anders and Justice to Hawke’s fleet. Packed tight together the ships closely resembled one another, a by-product of Hawke’s insistence that his crew trade partners routinely in order to learn new skills. In theory the Chantry disapproved of a mage choosing their handler but the Warden had cleared the way for it and Hawke had perfected it. His fleet was unpredictable and fierce in battle, despite their small size.

As they approached the back of the hanger Dog grew excited to see the Inquisition’s powerful fleet. Lavellan had scores of spiritships from her alliance with the rogue mages and they were clustered like eager children around the ships piloted by the Inquisition’s Inner Circle. 

He was first struck by the beauty of Lady Vivienne’s ship, the surface gleaming like smooth ice. It was a powerhouse ship, generally sent first into battle and more than a match to deal with most threats. Lady Vivienne was reportedly just as formidable outside of her ship and had since her summoning perfectly managed the scores of handlers vying for her ship.

The Inquisitor was the handler on the spiritship Wisdom, an ancient ship that was as mysterious as its pilot. The ship was sleek and dark, covered in hand-painted murals of elven gods and stories. Wisdom was as destructive as Lady Vivienne’s Command although it tended to strike at a distance and surround the battlefield with elemental devastation.

Dog was startled by the size and shape of Dorian’s serpentine dreadnought Vitality, occasionally puffing out smoke from its long front. It was in the Tevinter style as befitted its pilot, sharp-edged but elegant. He wasn’t the first mage to have a Qunari handler but he was the first Tevinter to do so and Dog wondered how his partnership had changed the ship. Surrounding the Vitality were the several small ships that made up the Iron Bull’s Chargers. The rumor was that one of them was a spiritship but the Chargers denied this vehemently.

Cole walked around and behind Vitality to where his own ship was hidden from sight against a wall. Two engineers were busily at work on it but they paused when Cole and Dog approached them. The cheerful-faced dwarven engineer smiled happily while the elaborately mustachioed human engineer just nodded vaguely at them.

“Hello, Cole! We just finished another diagnostic,” the woman said. She turned her full beaming face on Dog and held out her hand. He took it in his own large hand and shook it gingerly. “My name is Dagna. The grumpy one over there is Harritt.”

“Robert Levet. Folks call me Dog though.” Dog grinned broadly. “You find out the problem with Compassion?”

“Well, we’ll have to look over the results more thoroughly but,” Dagna hesitated.

“Ship looks fine. That noble idiot probably just pushed it too hard and got zapped for his troubles,” Harritt muttered and then frowned heavily behind his mustache at Cole. “Sorry, lad. Shouldn’t run my mouth off about your partner.”

Cole just lowered his head and mumbled something about it being fine.

“We’ll keep investigating. I love mysteries.” Dagna went over to Harritt and began pulling on his shirtsleeve. “Let’s give these two a little time alone with the ship. It was nice meeting you, Dog. Bye, Cole! Bye, Compassion!”

Harritt grunted at them as they passed. Alone Dog let himself get a good look at Compassion. He’d read all the information that was available on it, but Cole and Compassion’s reports were oddly scant considering the organization they were in. Compassion had been summoned around five years ago, although the report didn’t say exactly when or where. It was also quiet on the subject of where Cole had been for the two years before he joined the Inquisition or who had handled him until Vaughan Kendells had requested a mage from the Inquisition’s forces.

The ship itself was also mysterious. It was slim and unassuming, which made sense for a stealth ship, but the open cockpit revealed that the handler’s spot was far too small for even an elf to sit in. He stared at the spot for a confused moment.

“Compassion will fix that,” Cole said quickly, following Dog’s gaze. “Normally there’s more room.”

Dog blinked. It was odd behavior for a spiritship. They did continue to change themselves after they were summoned but they were generally useful or cosmetic changes, designed with the pilot in mind. He’d never heard of a spiritship making itself less accommodating to its pilot’s needs.

Otherwise however he was impressed by the ship. It wasn’t as flashy as the other Inquisition ships but it looked dangerous and fast. It was a light brown color with a faint haze of green always surrounding it, signaling its stealth capabilities. There were jagged edges at the corners that hinted at its ability to cut straight through weaker ships. He’d watched videos of Compassion flitting around the battlefield like a blur, slicing through enemy ships before rushing to injured friendlies and healing them.

Dog smiled in frank admiration. He’d copiloted on larger warships but despite his size he was a sneaky rogue at heart. 

“He’s a beauty,” Dog said genuinely. He reached a hand out, hovering it over the side of the ship. He looked over to Cole. “Can I?”

Cole nodded slowly.

He set his hand down over the surface of the ship. It was cool and rough to the touch, its surface covered with hundreds of little bumps that generated the Fade energy required to make it invisible. He could almost sense the wariness of the ship under his fingers, its mechanical hum tense as he felt along it. 

“Oh, you’re a gem, aren’t you, love?” Dog murmured. “Nothing the matter with you. You know what you want to do, don’t you?”

The hum grew less tense and more curious as he spoke to it in soothing tones. When he finally reached the front on the ship, his hand still gentle on every long line of it, the ship seemed softer and more content, the heavy energy it’d been generating relaxing.

Dog pulled his hand away and glanced back at Cole. He was taken aback when he saw that Cole had pushed his hood back and was staring at him with wide, shocked eyes. His eyes were a bright blue, sharp and clear, and he had a soft pink mouth that Dog suddenly wanted to kiss, just to see if those big eyes would grow even bigger. 

He didn’t think compatibility was going to be an issue at all.

 

Their new shared quarters were rather small considering that Cole was one of the elite but Dog supposed that the rooms he normally shared with Kendells were ostentatious enough. The cozy rooms were just to Dog’s tastes and he figured that the intimacy of the space would be helpful.

“How does Antivan sound for dinner? I make a great stew,” Dog asked casually as they set their things down. He turned his head when Cole didn’t answer and froze in surprise.

Cole had shed his hoodie and was trying to unbutton his shirt with shaking hands. His face was even paler than usual.

“Jumping right to it then?” Dog tried to sound flippant but Cole’s nervous attitude unsettled him.

He was starting to doubt that Cole was just nervous about having a new handler. His whole demeanor screamed anxiety and doubt.

Cole cleared his throat. “We should find out if we’re compatible. So that you don’t waste your time.”

“Sure,” Dog murmured obligingly and let a warm, lazy smile curl over his lips. He took a step forward but froze again when Cole let out a sharp breath and clutched his hands together, moving back.

“I’m not very good.” Cole wrung his hands together in clear misery at the admission. “At sex. I’m not good at it. Mr. Vaughan has to work harder to be compatible with me.”

Dog frowned, considering his words. It made little sense. Sex didn’t have to be a component of compatibility, although it often was. If partners weren’t sexually involved it was usually because they shared a familial relationship or enjoyed a deep friendship. If a handler was having problems with basic compatibility, he could request a new mage. No handler should be struggling to bond with their mage, especially after they’d spent years together.

Cole was looking down to the ground in the heavy silence. He licked his lips nervously, his shoulders hunched. 

“I’ll try to please you,” Cole murmured. “I can use my mouth and you can have me however you want.”

His words should have been arousing. Dog’s eyes narrowed. Normally they would have sounded great but in this case the appeal was hampered by the fact that Cole looked so unhappy to be offering his body to him.

Dog considered. “Let’s play a game.”

Cole nodded, his eyes still on the floor. “What do you want me to do?”

“We’ll play a questions game. It'll help us get to know each other.” Dog sat down on the couch and gestured for Cole to do the same. As Cole sat reluctantly beside him, his half-open shirt revealed pale skin and a shadowed collarbone.

Dog leaned over and carefully buttoned up his shirt. Cole shook so hard under his hands that it made Dog want to punch someone. Preferably an unprofessional handler who had let an incompatible match drag on for almost three years.

“I’ll ask a question and then you. Sound good?”

“Yes?” Cole was confused and worry was blushing his pointed face.

Dog stared at him for a moment, considering. “What’s your favorite color?”

“What?” Cole met his eyes in surprise. “I don’t know. Green?”

“Would of thought blue.” Dog reached out with a slow hand to push one of the many errant strands of hair from Cole’s face. “Like your pretty eyes.”

Cole just stared at him uncomprehendingly.

“Ask me a question then.”

“What’s your favorite color?” Cole asked in a rush.

“I like red myself. Bright, vibrant. Color of life and all.”

“Green is the color of the Fade. The Chantry says that mages were born with the Fade in them, growing and reaching for the Maker,” Cole said, his face earnest and more relaxed.

“That’s what the sisters say.” Dog nodded. He reached over and picked up one of Cole’s thin, wrapped hands. “Let’s see. If you could fly any other ship, what one would it be?”

“Oh!” Cole considered. “I like Vitality. It’s big, bold and brave, never buffeted, always blazing.”

Dog felt his mouth drop into a genuine smile at Cole’s eager answer. He carefully unwrapped his long-fingered hand and turned it over to kiss his palm. “Good answer. Ask me?”

“Which mage would you want to handle in the Inquisition?” Cole asked quietly, watching Dog rub his thumb over his palm.

“Pretty partial to the one I’m handling right now.” Dog picked up his other thin hand pulled off the wrappings in a single, sinuous movement. “My turn. How do you like to be kissed?”

Cole shrugged, wide eyes watching him dazedly. “I don’t know. No one’s ever kissed me before except my little sister and Evangeline on my forehead. That probably doesn’t count. Are there different ways?”

Dog paused right before he was about to press his mouth to Cole’s other warm palm. Now he was the one staring. “Vaughan never kissed you?”

“You didn’t answer my question.” Cole frowned. “Was it not my turn?”

“Cole.” Dog gently ran his hands up Cole’s long arms. “Did you and Vaughan ever have sex?”

“Of course.” Cole’s forehead furrowed in surprise at the question. “All the time. I don’t like sex as much but Mr. Vaughan needs it every day or he can’t co-pilot as effectively.”

“You had sex every day for three years and Kendells never kissed you?” Dog’s brain felt too hot as he considered it. He definitely felt hotter over Cole’s admission that he didn’t enjoy the sex that Vaughan apparently demanded every day.

“Do I not get questions anymore?” Cole was almost pouting in disappointment.

Dog took a calming breath. “Ask me a question.”

“Do you really like Compassion?”

“Very much,” Dog said earnestly. He looked at Cole’s thin face and considered. “My turn.”

Cole nodded, face suffused with pleasure over Dog’s answer.

“Can I kiss you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really too in love with the idea of solemn little Kieran being followed around by a floating Mabari hound. I imagine it barking in a weird, mechanical way whenever he talks to it. And the Warden's dog has completely accepted it as part of his pack while Hawke's dog play dog pranks on it whenever they're together because you know sarcastic Hawke's dog is also probably an asshole.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been a wild week, folks, and that's my excuse for the fact that this is all porn. I'll get back to the plot (IN SPACE!) next time but this is really just id-filled porn from beginning to end.

“Can I kiss you?”

Cole tilted his head at him for a moment. “If you want?”

“I do,” Dog said fervently. His hands were clenched at his sides and he forced them open as he lifted one up to touch Cole’s face. He slid his thumb down the warm skin of Cole’s cheek and then over his lips. As soon as he lifted up his thumb he replaced that gentle pressure with his mouth. 

Cole’s chest hitched slightly as he kissed him with slow and measured deliberation. Cole didn’t respond at first, obviously uncertain what he was supposed to do in return but as Dog continued moving his mouth against him, he began kissing him back. He was sweet, like Dog’s first kisses in the alley behind his aunt’s house, tender and hesitant. Soon the hesitancy disappeared and Cole was kissing him back with eagerness, his thin hands rising to Dog’s shoulders for leverage.

When Dog pulled reluctantly away, Cole was still staring at him but his eyes were feverish and his skin was blushed in excitement. Dog grinned at him. He didn’t remove his hand from his face and his grin grew wider when Cole pressed against it like a contented cat.

“How’s that then?” Dog asked.

“It’s my turn to ask a question,” Cole said firmly, his eyes half-closed.

“Keeping me on the straight and narrow, that’s good.” Dog nodded. “Ask.”

“What other ways are there to kiss someone?” His eyes opened fully and while the look in them wasn’t truly knowing, there was a slyness there that was appealing.

“Easier to show, of course.” Dog leaned forward and kissed him again. This time he didn’t bother with sweetness or softness. He moved his hand to back of Cole’s head and took his mouth with all the fervor his growing arousal demanded. Cole made a noise under his forceful kiss, mouth falling slack with surprise. Dog was quick to take advantage and slipped his tongue inside. It took Cole a moment longer to get the hang of these sorts of carnal kisses but when he began pressing against Dog in inexpert delight, they both moaned.

This time when he much more reluctantly pulled away Dog almost dove back in at the dazed expression on Cole’s face. He grunted when Cole licked over his lips and wondered how Vaughan had managed to have him in his bed for so long without doing that. He wasn’t sure he was going to manage getting through the next three minutes without kissing him again, much less three years.

“I like kissing,” Cole said finally. “I think that both of those ways were good. And also Bunny and Evangeline’s way even though it’s not the same.”

Dog laughed. “Bunny your little sister then?”

“Yes,” Cole said, his excited flush fading a bit as he puffed up with pride. “She flies a big Avvar ship. It likes to sing to me when it’s close enough for me to hear.”

“Pretty name. I’d like to meet her someday.” Dog tried to imagine a girl version of Cole for a moment, with lanky limbs and messy hair and big blue eyes. 

He was surprised to hear that she was in the Avvar fleet. They operated outside of the Chantry and treated their mages like privileged people, not in the dangerous way of the Imperium but more like they were Chantry mothers one and all. The Avvar mages chose the people that would fly with them and let the spiritships chose their mages after a massive summoning ceremony. He wondered how she had ended up there since Cole was clearly Fereldan by his accent. Although as Dog gave him a closer look he could see the Avvar in his broad shoulders, strong legs, and pale complexion. 

“Oh.” Cole deflated a bit and worry flooded back into his face so quickly that Dog was startled. “She lives very far away. You can’t really see her.”

“Sad, but I think I’m happy for the moment just seeing the older rabbit.” Dog kept his voice light and was pleased when Cole relaxed again. “My turn then?”

“You asked about my sister,” Cole said contemplatively. “But we don’t have to count that question.”

“Generous.” Dog licked his lips. “Do you want me to keep kissing you?”

Cole nodded slowly and Dog surged forward. He left his tender niceties behind so that he could press Cole against the soft arm of the couch and kiss him hard. Cole hummed in pleasure under him, his long arms sliding up with some awkwardness around Dog’s thick shoulders. He kissed back with equal, growing excitement.

The next few moments passed by in a pleasurable haze. At some point Dog managed to yank his shirt off and he was more than relieved when Cole scratched lightly up his sides. At least this was familiar to him. Cole then tried once again to unbutton his own shirt but he kept getting distracted by Dog’s mouth on his, by his hands on the newly uncovered flesh. Cole made a frustrated noise against him and finally Dog unbuttoned the rest of it himself so that he could touch more. 

The situation was growing pretty heated by the time that Dog felt comfortable enough to move the hand he was gripping Cole’s hip with over a bit to brush against the growing erection he could clearly feel under him. Cole tensed immediately, pushing his hands against his shoulders and shoving him away.

“What?” Cole was breathing thickly, eyes so wide that they seemed to take up most of his face. “What are you doing?”

Dog tried to control his own breathing as he stared down, kneeling between Cole’s long legs on the narrow couch. He experienced an odd blinding moment of rage that he hadn’t felt in years and he tried to tamp it down savagely. Despite that he knew that a trace of his disbelief and anger were clear in his voice.

“You telling me that,” Dog took a moment to swallow down the nastier word he wanted to use, “prick never touched you when you were having sex? For three fucking years?”

“Of course he touched me. He just didn’t touch me there. Why would he?”

“Because it feels good!” Dog ran his fingers through his hair and wondered if he was going crazy. “He’s supposed to make you feel good.”

“That’s not his job.” Cole sounded confused and almost miserable as he looked away. “That’s my part. To help him.”

“That’s shite,” Dog spit out and regretted it. His anger—while completely and totally appropriate for this situation if there was any situation that called for it—wouldn’t help. He took a few calming breaths and imagined the sky above Old Antiva City, beautiful and serene. He lifted his body up more and let his voice fall into a soothing, inviting tone. “I don’t need help to get hard around you.”

He gestured to his own growing erection and Cole’s eyes landed on it, his eyebrows popping up to his shaggy hair. Dog continued, “I want to make you feel good. We can work together on it, like when we work together on the ship. It takes both of us to do this right.”

Cole still looked uncertain but as Dog risked putting his hands on the outside of Cole’s legs and rubbing into them, he sighed a bit. He stretched out and nodded. “Okay.”

“You won’t regret it,” Dog told him. He didn’t move his hands back to where he wanted them to go right away. He continued stroking up Cole’s long legs, noting each tiny, surprised reaction. When he did make his way back to where Cole was straining against his tight leathers, he paused and met his eyes. “Can I touch you here?”

“Yes,” Cole said, somehow stumbling over the single word. 

He pressed his hand against him and was rewarded with a sharp, surprised moan, half-muffled by the hand Cole threw over his mouth. Dog continued rubbing against him for a few moments and that shocked cry turned into hesitant, stifled gasps. Finally Dog leaned down, kissing his curved hand and pulling it away from his mouth. 

“Want to hear you, don’t I? Know I’m doing my part right.”

Cole was clearly reluctant but Dog’s hand moving over him was enough to ease his concerns for the time being. His first unfiltered moan was shocked out of him when Dog pulled his tight trousers down enough to pull out his cock and stroke once firmly up to the tip.

“Oh, that’s nice,” Dog murmured in appreciation, both for the sounds Cole was making freely as he stroked him and for the long prick he had in his hand. Despite the limited space of the couch they were on he wanted a taste so he propped Cole up with his thick arms and took him in his mouth.

Cole’s reaction was so startled that he normally would have stopped but by this point he had grown so unfortunately used to his surprise over being catered to in any sexual way that Dog kept up his steady movements. 

“You shouldn’t do that,” Cole said in weak protest. “You’re not a mage.”

Dog wondered how many people would notice if he jettisoned the son of one of Ferelden’s most powerful ruling families out of the airlock. He was definitely going to pay Vaughan Kendells a visit sometime this week and ask him where exactly he’d learned how to be such a shitty handler. It was a wonder they’d ever gotten the ship off the ground together.

Instead of communicating all of this to Cole he simply sucked harder, pleased at his flexibility as he pulled him up further in his arms. Cole leaned his head back and was breathing hard through his teeth, gasping out in an inadvertent warning as he came suddenly in his mouth. Dog continued holding him up until he was spent and then slowly lowered him back down onto the couch. 

Cole collapsed in a little boneless heap and then glanced up at him in wonderment.

“How was that then?” Dog asked, licking his lips in smug satisfaction.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Cole said almost shyly. “I would have been happy to do it to you instead.”

To Dog’s happy shock Cole reached out to the thick bulge in his trousers, caressing him with nimble fingers. Dog grunted in approval as Cole stroked him but stopped him as he reached for his heavy belt.

“Let’s move this somewhere a bit bigger, love. Got to have room for what I want to do to you.”

Cole nodded his head in a slow dip, following Dog off the couch and into the darkened bedroom. He lost his trousers and shirt as he came in and stood a moment in the doorway, peering around the new space. Cole wasn’t as lanky as he looked, with firm muscles over a long body. Dog looked his fill a moment before Cole dropped to his knees in front of him.

He raised his hands to Dog’s belt and trousers, getting his cock out with practiced speed. He paused a moment when he saw him and Cole’s bright eyes widened up at him. 

“You’re very big.”

“Yeah?” Dog grinned and almost asked if he was bigger than Kendells but he figured he really didn’t need to get into a dick-measuring contest with an actual dick.

“Yes,” Cole said thoughtfully and leaned up enough to lick along the length of him before taking his head in his mouth. Dog stiffened in surprise. 

What followed was the single greatest blowjob Dog had ever received in his life and he’d had a truly blessed life on the blowjob front. Cole was inexhaustible and determined, moving his mouth along Dog’s erection like it was as natural as breathing and forcing him down with practiced ease. 

Dog let it go on for longer than he planned, let Cole suck on him until he felt the familiar stirrings of his release. At that point he gently pushed him away, reluctantly and with no small amount of inner turmoil.

“That’s beautiful,” Dog began and almost couldn’t continue as Cole rocked back on his heels, carefully licking at his lips as he stared up at him with obedient eyes. “Really good, but I’m hoping for something else now.”

Cole smiled slightly and nodded. “Of course.”

He sprang up jackrabbit-style and went over to the bed. Cole climbed onto the comforter on his hands and knees and stared back at Dog over his shoulder. “Like this?”

Dog couldn’t imagine prettier sight and the offering made his stomach tighten in sudden, intense desire. He took a deep breath before retrieving a bottle of slick from his bag and coming over to the bed. He slid his hand down Cole’s back and came to rest it on his strong hip, working his thumb around in broad circles on his skin. Cole breathed out sharply, leaning his head down.

“You want this?” Dog asked, slicking his cock up and pressing it to Cole’s firm backside. He did, fairly desperately by this point, but he wanted Cole to be comfortable with it. “All kinds of other things we can do.”

“We should do this,” Cole said firmly, pushing back against him. Dog held onto him.

“You’re gonna relax for me, right? Let me in easy?” Dog slowly pressed the thick head of his cock against Cole’s hole and waited for his nod before pushing into him with patient restraint. To his credit Cole did take him in with minimal resistance, despite the sudden strain in his shoulders and back. Cole moaned and dug his hands into the comforter.

“You’re very, very big,” Cole said again, voice choked a bit.

“Am I hurting you?” Dog asked, forcing himself to stop his slow slide inside Cole’s tight body.

Cole shook his head. “No. It’s not hurt. It’s just…bigger and slicker and…”

He trailed off as Dog pushed forward once again. Cole moaned, holding himself up on one hand to push the other against his mouth. Dog grunted as he moved deeper in and then made a decision when Cole’s next few cries were muffled. 

He pulled out all the way and grabbed Cole’s hips, turning him over onto his back in a quick motion. Cole stared up at him with worried eyes, breathing hard against his palm. He lowered his hand. “Did I do something wrong?”

“Not a bit. Just want to see you feeling this,” Dog said and then pulled Cole’s legs up. He automatically wrapped them around his waist. 

Dog firmed his lips together as he pushed back against his entrance, watching Cole’s face as he pressed in. There was quick look of surprise that turned to open pleasure as he moved and Dog felt something loosening in his chest at the sight.

They moved together for a few slow moments, finding a steady rhythm between them that accommodated Dog’s size and Cole’s inexperience with it. When Dog thrust out and then back in at a slightly different angle on one pass, Cole gasped and his hand flew back up to his mouth, pressing hard.

“None of that,” Dog said. He reached up and grabbed both of Cole’s wrists in his hand, pinning them above his head. Cole was too busy crying out at his sudden thrust inside to notice and when he did a moment later, there was such a look of complete bafflement on his face that it made Dog smile. 

Cole pulled on his arms for an ineffectual moment before Dog moved sharply again, startling a low, clear moan from his lips. At that point Dog had exactly what he wanted and began moving in earnest. He set a hard, steady pace that left them both grunting loudly in the small room. Cole forgot his trapped hands and began moving with him, eagerly and wonderfully.

“You’re a marvel.” Dog admired the tableau of desperate limbs working under him before moving his hand from Cole’s hip and closing it around his straining cock. “You made a pretty face for me when you came before. Let’s see it again, sweet.”

“Oh!” Cole pushed into his hand, struggling with his entire body towards and away from Dog in equal measures. It didn’t take long before he crested over the top with an almost panicked cry. 

Dog groaned at the sight and doubled his efforts until he joined him. He came back to himself in increments, first with awareness that he was gripping Cole’s firm, rounded thighs tightly and panting down at him like an angry animal. He chuckled at himself and also at his second realization of how fucked-out Cole looked on the bed, his face half-pressed against the comforter as he tried to catch his breath.

“You doing good there, love? How you feeling?” Dog slowly pulled out and Cole shuddered hard in response. Dog leaned over, intending to simply question him again but instead he was nuzzling his neck before he realized it. He licked a long line up to his chin and bit down. “Come on, tell how you’re doing.”

Cole turned his head and slowly his arms snaked around Dog’s shoulders. His eyes were bright as he stared at him. 

“Can we do that again? Please.”

Dog grinned and kissed him hard, pressing the full length of his heavy body down on top of him. Cole made a pleased noise and wrapped his legs around him. 

“I don’t argue with the talent, love,” Dog told him and proceeded to explore their compatibility once again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my head Cole's sister looks like The Dag from _Mad Max: Fury Road_. Honestly in my head Bunny is just The Dag because she reminded me a bit of a more confident version of Cole.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I spelled Vaughan's name wrong every single time, like damn.

Cole fought back the urge to cover his mouth as Dog fucked him against the wall of the shower. His moans sounded so loud in the small space that it would have made him feel anxious if everything else wasn’t making him feel so good. He pressed back, hands spread across the cool tile, as that heavy, hard flesh pushed into him. Dog was stroking him with one firm hand, slow and steady and sure, while his other hand moved his hips at a pace that was maddening.

“Please,” Cole said, startling himself. Dog groaned low behind him, triumphant.

“Needing something, sweet?” Dog bit at his neck and then huffed in his ear, hot and close. “Got something you want me to do with my big prick?”

Cole closed his eyes and shook his head. He knew what he wanted but it seemed impossible that Dog would want to hear that coming from him. Vaughan didn’t object to him finding pleasure in the act per se but he definitely didn’t want to hear about it. The shower was actually the place that he’d found release most often over the years, gripping himself with cautious hands after Vaughan fell asleep in his bedroom. 

Dog slowed to a crawl and Cole hiccupped over a moan in protest. Then that low voice was back at his ear, breathing out insinuations. “Got to tell me what you need, don’t you? I’m here to help but I got to have some direction. What do you want?”

“I want,” Cole started and stopped, his hand moving back to grasp at the back of Dog’s thick neck. He tried to move, tried to find his release himself like he’d done so many times before but Dog kept his hands tight around him. He whimpered.

There was a warm chuckle that reverberated against his back. “I got you.”

Dog began moving once more, this time at a quicker pace, his hand slipping around Cole’s needy cock just the way he never knew he loved. It didn’t take long before it sent him over and Cole tried his best not to bite at his lip as he came against the shower wall.

“That’s perfect,” Dog said and thrust into him a half-dozen more times, stunning a gasp out of his mouth before he could think about it. Then Dog grunted hard, stilling against him.

Cole tried to catch his breath as the water steamed around them. He already wanted to be in the middle of next time. They’d fucked exhaustively over the past couple of days, exploratory and thorough in ways he’d never imagined but he still wanted more. The other night Dog had encouraged Cole to fuck him, with a pleased smirk and filthy words that still made him feel warm to remember. He’d been stunned that Dog would even consider it, although his experiences over their time together had given him a new appreciation of the act. He’d never realized it could be anything but sometimes pleasant and always demeaning.

Dog kissed his neck affectionately. “Let’s get out of here and get something to eat. I’m starving, love.”

“You should go in and get your inhibitor adjusted today,” Dog said casually, taking a big bite out of his sandwich. He waved it at Cole sitting on the counter and swallowed, grinning conspiratorially. “Then you won’t have to tell me what you want.” 

Cole felt a bit like he’d been punched in the stomach. It was stupid, he should have realized that this would be a part of what they were doing but he’d been so wrapped up in his anxiety and then in shocked pleasure that he hadn’t remembered the basics of being handled.

“Yes. I will,” he said dully. He set his sandwich back on the plate and stared down at his knees.

Dog chewed thoughtfully for a moment and Cole didn’t have to read his mind to know that he wasn’t reacting properly. When Dog set his sandwich down and came over to him, Cole quickly wrapped his arms around his shoulders and kissed him hard.

He carefully touched the edges of Dog’s mind as he kissed him, practicing around the borders of his surface thoughts and feelings. He’d tried to keep himself tightly blocked off since Vaughan’s mind had snapped out of his a couple of weeks ago so it felt a bit awkward to be purposefully reaching out again. Cole had been terrified during those initial observations after the incident that the bioengineers would realize that he could read their minds without a handler. However his inhibitor had been working perfectly according to their machines and they’d been more concerned with Vaughan and his ship than with him.

As Cole began to lose himself in a kiss that was quickly becoming more, he had a hurried exchange with Compassion that would have stunned the bioengineers that maintained their neural links. 

Dog couldn’t be in his mind. Not all the way, not in the full, comprehensive way he’d let Vaughan in years ago, little realizing what it would mean, only knowing that this was the person he was supposed to give everything to without reservation.

He’d give him a little. Most people, mages included, were satisfied with so little mental connection. It was like they couldn’t even see what more there was inside a person.

“I’ll go after lunch,” Cole said and Dog growled playfully at him before tipping him down against the counter.

 

The bioengineering lab was fairly empty when Cole walked in but there were some welcome faces.

Hawke was sprawled out on a bunk, his massive frame almost spilling over as he spoke with Dagna. His current partner Fenris and Varric were standing with him. The latter waved at Cole as he came over.

“Can you believe this guy, Kid? He overloaded his damn inhibitor playing Wicked Grace.” Varric shook his head, smirking heavily at Hawke. “And he still lost.”

“Aveline has a surprisingly complex poker face,” Hawke said, tilting his head a bit so that Dagna could remove the sensors on his temple. Beside him Fenris crossed his arms and scowled.

“You have to work harder with me than with anyone else. We should switch,” Fenris said. He scratched at the lyrium lines on his arm and Cole felt a little shiver run through him. He didn’t know how anyone could work with Fenris without overloading all the time anyway. His entire body pulsed with the Fade.

“Well, I don’t know why you think Anders has an easier time with you and he’s next on the rotation.” Hawke wrapped his burly arm around Fenris and relaxed against the bunk. “Besides, I like a little spark.”

Fenris made a truly upsetting face at the mention of Anders and somehow crossed his arms even more. “I’ll switch with Isabela. Merrill’s can handle it easier.”

Hawke and Varric both snickered and Dagna pursed her lips like she was trying to hold back a laugh. Then Hawke shook his head hard and grimaced. “No, we’re not going off-schedule or I’ll get confused and end up partnering with Sebastian twice in a row again. That was a long dry spell for me.”

“Your libido is not the most important factor here,” Fenris grumbled.

“That’s hurtful, Fenris. I wasn’t thinking about my libido all those years I was partnered up with Carver, now was I? I think that earned me some enjoyment from getting handled.” Hawke’s hand slid lower down Fenris’s back. “And I do enjoy the way you handle me.”

Fenris scowled more but didn’t move away from Hawke’s wandering hand.

“Okay, boys, I think I’ve done all I can for that little strain you had there.” Dagna shook her head at them all. “I’ve adjusted your inhibitor so you should be able to maintain the link with less reach but you’re going to have to come back when you switch again or you’ll never get your ship off the ground. Which would be bad.”

“I don’t know. I’m kind of enjoying the Inquisition’s hospitality. It beats Kirkwall at least.” Hawke was flippant but his movements were stiff as he got up off the cot, Fenris’s strong hands steadying him. 

“See you later, Kid,” Varric said to Cole cheerfully as he followed the two out of the room. 

Alone with Dagna Cole felt awkward and uncertain. She fixed her friendly, curious face on him and smiled but he wondered if she was afraid to be alone with him. Many of the bioengineers were hesitant around a mage without their handler there to control them. He didn’t want to look and see.

“Compassion’s looking really good today, Cole. I think he’ll be ready to fly by next week.”

Cole nodded, reaching up to finger the ties on his hoodie. “Yes, that’s good. He’s eager to help again. I want to help too. That’s why I’m here.”

He hesitated again but Dagna’s warm eyes were an encouragement. He continued, “I need to have a patch to adjust my inhibitor? For linking with my new handler?”

“Oh!” Dagna pointed her finger at him in excitement and pulled over a monitor. “I’m glad you said that! I have a new system for initial adjustment that I want to use instead.”

“Oh?” Cole murmured politely. He really just wanted the patch. He could throw it in the incinerator and Dog would never know that he hadn’t used it.

“Yes. Sit down, sit down.” She waved him onto the cot and he sat down, slouching as he watched her bustle around. 

She put cold sensors on his temples, over the incisions for his inhibitor, and he shivered. 

“Sorry!” Dagna said sweetly and flipped on her monitor. They both stared a moment at the two thick, intersecting lines on the screen. “Look at that! That’s you.” 

She point to one pulsing line on the screen and then tapped over the other. “And that’s Compassion.”

Dagna paused for a moment and frowned slightly. “Wait, no, I mixed that up.”

Cole began swinging his legs slowly. He hadn’t wanted to correct her so he was happy she’d realized her mistake.

“Wow, those really look similar.” Dagna stared at the lines for a few more moments and then shook herself determinedly. “Right. And that big empty spot is Mr. Kendells.”

She tapped over the dark space surrounding his neural links. He felt a strange chill looking at it. He didn’t really like having Vaughan in his mind and he certainly didn’t like being in his but the past couple of weeks had made him feel hollowed out in a way that frightened him. He shouldn’t be allowed to be so free. It was dangerous.

“We haven’t started looking at his neural capacity since the accident,” Dagna said, oddly subdued at the thought of Kendells. “You guys might have trouble reconnecting when he heals up.”

Cole ducked his head low, kicking his legs harder. They wouldn’t have trouble. He had been bad and he would fix it. Compassion wasn’t being completely cooperative on this front but he would convince him that he was right. 

“But you should still be able to make a temporary link with your new handler. That’s where my machine comes in.” Dagna raised her eyebrows at him in obvious excitement. “The patch was inefficient and painful. My transmitter will open up your inhibitor for a few hours, just the same as the patch except without the mental strain.”

“What?” Cole stopped kicking his legs and focused his attention fully back on Dagna.

“It uses your connection with your ship as a funnel to open up to your handler instead of the connection opening up solely on your end. That was where the migraines were coming from. The spiritships are the ones with the greater mental capacity, not the mages. They’re already opening up your neural pathways, I’m just redirecting it.”

Cole didn’t completely understand what Dagna was talking about, although he appreciated that she was very excited about it, but he knew that it was dangerous. He didn’t need any help to make a mental connection. His inhibitor really only served to keep him contained to Skyhold but he couldn’t tell Dagna that. 

“Thank you, but I think the patch would be better,” Cole said carefully.

“Don’t be silly!” Dagna shook her hand dismissively. “It’s much safer and honestly, Cole, with the strain your head must be under right now I don’t think I could authorize a patch for you.”

“Oh.” Cole deflated. Compassion had been happily speaking with Wisdom but he slid around him at his distress. He brought him quickly up to speed with the wordless communication they’d used since the beginning. 

Compassion didn’t think it was a problem. He wanted to spread out further. He liked touching as many minds as he could, feeling their hurts and trying to think of ways of making them better. Cole frowned. He didn’t think they actually had a choice.

“Okay,” he said reluctantly and didn’t even feel better at Dagna’s happy cheer.

He sat still as she danced her fingers on her screen until the neural links were pulsing more robustly. He could feel Compassion growing stronger as the mental chain around him loosened. Finally there was something that felt like a pop in his head and the machine beeped and the universe spoke to him with a billion voices.

Cole gasped, putting his head in his hands as the flood of voices and emotions poured in. Compassion took the brunt of them, reveling in the warm outpouring of humanity, but he could still see so much. Too much.

Dagna was worried. Worried that he was hurt and that her machine didn’t work even though it’d worked perfectly before and Harritt would never let her hear the end of it if she blew out one of the Inquisition’s Inner Circle and, shit, she hoped he was okay.

“I’m okay,” Cole said between the fingers on his face and Dagna was still worried and Compassion thought she should know that Harritt thought she was pretty when she was fiddling with the old machinery and Cole almost opened his mouth to tell her before he clamped his teeth together hard. “Thank you, Dagna, you were very helpful. I should go back to my room now.”

“Do you want me to call your handler?” She was less worried but he looked so pale, like paler than normal, like a sick nug underground where nobody cared about spiritships because they didn’t talk to dwarves and she might still be down there in that smithy if the Warden hadn’t saved her. 

“No, my room isn’t far,” Cole said and stood. His legs felt so strange because he shouldn’t have legs, he should have an exhaust port and metal wings and be seated among the larger spiritships, so welcoming and warm and wonderful. “Thank you.”

“Okay, Cole. Come back with Dog after you make the link so I can see it.” Dagna smiled in an encouraging way and he could see every fear she’d ever had behind her bright teeth.

Cole hurried out of the lab and towards the elevator door. He tried not to make eye contact with anybody that he passed but eye contact was unnecessary because he didn’t have eyes and he didn’t need eyes to see that Fiona was frightened, frantic, and furious that her son was on the same damn ship as her and she couldn’t bring herself to see him, couldn’t hold her talented grandson and know that she and Maric had at least done something right. He almost ran into her as he passed and she felt pity towards him, poor addled boy. She wouldn’t feel the same if she knew that he’d plucked the secrets out of her head over a year ago and hidden them away in a lockbox five floors up.

The chef gave him a dirty look as she passed because she thought that he’d taken her rolls but it had been Sera and also because she’d had a fight with her husband that morning and he’d told her that she’d become her father and she’d rather throw herself into deep space than admit that he was right.

Cole almost pounded on the pad beside the elevator, trying to level out his breathing. Compassion knew that he was upset and was trying to shield him a bit from everyone but he was so distracted by all the feelings everywhere. Spirits were flighty. He’d made a joke. Maybe Varric would like it.

The elevator door opened and he ran into a large auburn-haired man in beautiful silk clothing coming out of it. 

“Watch it,” the man snapped and then paused. “Cole? What are you doing skulking around here?”

Jonaley. Jonaley was Vaughan’s closest friend and he’d never admit it, not to a damn soul, but he’d loved Vaughan since he’d been eleven and he’d watched the young lord strike his elven nanny across the face so hard it had left a mark. Jonaley glared at Cole and wanted him locked away where he deserved to be but also wanted to throw him into the elevator and push him to his knees and—

“I have to leave,” Cole said swiftly, sliding around him. He pressed the button for his floor and was hopeful until Jonaley slid his thick arm in the elevator door and grabbed his collar.

“Why the hurry, Cole?” Jonaley said his name like it meant something bad. “You haven’t come to see Vaughan since your damn ship nearly killed him. I’m beginning to think that you don’t want him to get better.”

“I do,” Cole said and wondered if he was going to kill Jonaley in this narrow hallway. He didn’t want to but Compassion was pressing against him like heavy armor and he didn’t know if he’d be able to control himself if Jonaley tried to hurt him.

“Then you better go up and see him tomorrow. Come see all of us.” Jonaley’s eyes slid down to Cole’s mouth and he could see what he wanted and he’d just done it happily a few hours ago but he didn’t want to now or with him and the thought made him want to hurt someone.

“Yes,” Cole breathed out. Vaughan would tell him what to do like he had for three years and everything could get back to normal and he might not be so tempted to be such a monster.

“Hey, quit holding up the elevator,” Iron Bull said from behind Jonaley, his low voice an ominous rumble.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't intend for the part with Iron Bull and Cole to be so long but my not-so-secret Iron Bull/Cole shipping heart surged in me while I was writing it. Oops?

Amazingly Jonaley actually hesitated for a few seconds before releasing Cole’s collar and stepping back. He gave Cole one last dark look before turning around and stomping down the hallway.

Iron Bull had moved over politely to let Jonaley pass by in the small space but he stared down the hallway after him with interest before turning back to Cole. 

“Was he giving you shit, Kid?” Iron Bull moved into the narrow elevator. If Cole said yes, he was absolutely prepared to go back out and explain a few things about manners to the noble. Nobody gave his friends a hard time and someone picking on Cole was like stomping on a nug.

Cole looked even more twitchy than usual, which was really saying something, his blue eyes darting around as though he was watching an invisible parade in the cramped elevator.

Iron Bull let the door to the elevator slide shut and then pushed the emergency stop. He kept his hands at his side even though he wanted to lay one down on Cole’s hunched shoulder. Cole could be jittery about being touched and he wanted to respect that. “Kid?”

“Oh!” Cole took a deep breath and made brief eye contact with him before looking away, his hands clinging together. “I thought I answered but it was all inside. There’s so much, The Iron Bull. Everyone is so much bigger inside.”

“I’d rather be bigger on the outside,” Iron Bull said, mostly ignorant to what Cole was talking about and not eager to find out. He liked several mages personally—especially one gorgeous, mouthy one—but in general their abilities freaked him out.

He worried about the kid sometimes, about how anxious and uncertain he seemed. He knew that underneath the slick charm Kendells displayed on most days that he was probably not a great guy. It wasn’t because Kendells didn’t think that a savage Qunari should be in the Inquisition—although that didn’t help—but because of the persistent rumors of him mistreating some of the lower-ranking workers around Skyhold. Iron Bull had never been able to confirm it or he would have taken it to Lavellan, but it fit his smug attitude. He couldn’t imagine how he treated the strange young mage when nobody was around.

“Cruelty in kindness. The anger is cleaner because it sees me. Sometimes. If I don’t listen like I should,” Cole said in an earnest voice before closing his eyes in distress. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. You were inside, not outside. Compassion doesn’t understand the difference.”

“Kid,” Iron Bull said again and this time he did put his hands on Cole’s long arms, trying to ground him a bit from wherever he was. “Are you okay? Are you having problems with your new handler?”

Cole relaxed almost instantly under his hands and peered up, a curious look on his face that Iron Bull had never seen on him. He sidled up against him in the narrow elevator. Iron Bull almost backed up in surprise but instead he watched as Cole pressed against his broad chest.

“No,” Cole said, dreamy and warm. He put his hands flat against Iron Bull’s bare shoulders. “He’s very nice.”

“That’s good,” Iron Bull said, eyebrow lifted high. Cole rolled his thumb in a circle around a thick muscle on Iron Bull’s shoulder and licked his lips, staring up with curious eyes at Iron Bull’s own mouth.

“You told Lavellan that you would take care of me if nobody came but Dog did and it’s so good, The Iron Bull.” Cole pressed more against him, loose-limbed and eager. “Would you have been so good to me?”

“Sure,” Iron Bull murmured, realizing what was going on. It was true that he’d told Lavellan that he could handle the kid for a little bit if nobody had answered their request for a temporary assignment. He’d figured that Cole would be easy to handle and his Chargers could manage Dorian for at least a little while. Krem would have gotten a kick out of it. “You’re in my head right now, aren’t you, Kid?”

“Everything is open to us right now. I can see you, soft demands that turn to stone if needed.” Cole’s breath hitched a bit and honestly Iron Bull was wondering about some things he hadn’t really thought about before. His offer to handle Cole had been made with the thought that it would rely on his friendly affection for the mage and not on sexual exploration, since he’d imagined Cole wouldn’t want that from him. He’d really misread that. “I can see Solas, dreaming about Lavellan and the way that the universe circles around and around like a top. I can see my sister. The wind is blowing on the mountain but she’s happy and she’s safe and she still forgives me.”

Cole pressed his palm hard to his forehead, letting out a soft noise. Iron Bull’s eye narrowed. As far as he knew Cole’s odd sister was still with the Avvar, way too far away for Cole to be reading her mind even if he’d gotten his mental block temporarily lifted, which it seemed clear he had.

“I think I need to get you up to your room. You can have a nice rest, and see what you can still see tomorrow.” Iron Bull pressed his palm over the buttons and the elevator began moving. Cole still clung to him, although his unexpected ardor had faded into clear exhaustion. Iron Bull ran his hand over his back in a comforting way.

“You’re nice too,” Cole murmured. “The swamp was deep and dark and you were scared but you never lost yourself, The Iron Bull. You were always still you.”

“Thanks, Kid,” Iron Bull said because there didn’t seem to be any other response to the words that settled in his mind like a heavy stone. He held him until the elevator reached their floor.

 

Dog was surprised when the Iron Bull ended up being on the other side of the polite knock which had pulled him out of a much-needed nap. He’d been working tirelessly over the past few days, admittedly in pleasurable work, and he’d figured that he would need his full strength for the mental strain he’d be under. Linking was always difficult and Cole was listed as being fairly average on the telepathic front.

However he hadn’t been too worried about it until Iron Bull half-carried Cole into their room, the latter murmuring to himself with a dazed expression on his face. The huge Qunari deposited Cole gently onto the couch and turned around, regarding Dog with a cool expression. 

Iron Bull held out his hand. “We haven’t met yet. I’m the Iron Bull.”

Dog nodded like a toy because of course this was the Iron Bull, co-pilot of the most ferocious ship in the Inquisition fleet. He’d watched videos of the Vitality for hours, admiring the skill displayed by the flashy mage and his solid handler. He extended out his own hand and Iron Bull shook it so firmly that he swore he felt his bones cracking in protest. “Robert Levet. People call me Dog.”

“Mmmm-hmmm,” Iron Bull said politely, disinterestedly. He nodded his head to Cole, who had tucked himself up on the couch and closed his eyes. “Kid wore himself out opening up his head. You probably should have gone with him.”

The rebuke was mild but it still raised Dog’s hackles a bit. He pushed the irritation down and grinned. “Probably right. Thanks for seeing him home.”

“Yeah.” Iron Bull stood there for a little longer, his one eye penetrating and thoughtful. “Cole said some nice things about you. He never says much about Kendells.”

“Not much to say, I expect,” Dog said and Iron Bull’s expression was knowing. “We should probably get to work before his link goes dead.”

Iron Bull hesitated. “I don’t think that will be a problem with him.”

Dog frowned and would have asked for clarification but Iron Bull suddenly shrugged his big shoulders. “Nevermind. Cole’s a good kid and he seems to like you. That’s what’s important. I’ve gotta get back to Dorian before he stages a coup and takes over my Chargers. See you around.”

Dog watched him leave, confused. A noise behind him drew his attention back to the couch.

Cole was fitfully trying to pull his hoodie off with shaking hands, the torn fabric on the bottom getting stuck on the top buttons on his shirt.

“Let’s lend a hand there, right?” Dog went over and carefully pulled off the hoodie. Cole immediately started going for the buttons on his shirt but Dog put his large hand over Cole’s shaking ones. “How are you doing here, love?”

“I want you to have me,” Cole said bluntly, pushing up against him with surprising strength. “You want to and I want to and we can. Nothing is bad about it.”

“Beautiful idea, sweet,” Dog said with real feeling. “But we shouldn’t waste your little power boost. Plenty of time to have fun after.”

“Compassion likes you,” Cole murmured, pressing his head down onto Dog’s shoulder. His hands rose up to clasp around his back and Cole’s long legs bunched up around Dog’s hips like a cage. “Your Lady didn’t know people could be kind, gentleness instead of pain and forgetting. She couldn’t say thank you with words but you knew it every day. I’m sorry that she died.”

“Fuck,” Dog said loudly, stunned. He felt bad a second later when Cole flinched against him, still clinging tightly. He soothed away Cole’s startled apologies with soft noises, his arms tightening carefully around him.

“I’m trying not to see too much,” Cole said, his voice thin. “Compassion doesn’t understand why. He wants to help but I don’t want to feel people hurting.”

“Let me help then. We can both feel it,” Dog murmured, barely hearing himself. He just knew that he couldn’t listen to that broken lilt in Cole’s voice and not do something.

“Yes. I didn’t know how the first time.” Cole pulled back, his uncertain fingers lifting up to brush against Dog’s temples. “I promise not to hurt you.”

Dog nodded and when Cole leaned forward to press his lips to him he lived an entirely different life in a rapid burst. 

“Maker,” Dog said with a gasp, alien images and feelings and thoughts still flitting around in his head. Already most of it was fading away, sliding back and leaving him with a blurred memory of a frightened childhood, trusting eyes that were a mirror of his own, and a deep hunger that settled so far into him that he couldn’t shake it. The guilt was the last to slip away, clinging tightly to the edges of his mind. 

“Are you all right?” Cole asked softly and Dog felt the worry rattle around in his head. He closed his eyes against it. He’d linked to dozens of mages before and it had never felt like this. The strongest mage he’d ever handled had felt like a stray thought constantly beyond the edges of his awareness, barely perceptible until they were on the ship. Cole felt like a warm bath, slipping around in him, all around him. 

“I’m okay,” Dog said when the worry hit a fever-pitch. Eyes still closed he found Cole’s face with his hands and pulled him in for another kiss. He could feel the pressure reverberating on both sides, kissing and being kissed and then responding with pleasure and surprised delight. Still so surprised.

He pulled Cole up easily into his arms and stumbled blindly into the bedroom. They fought to get their clothes off, struggling to do it while still clinging together. Finally they pressed against each other, eager and desperate in equal measures. Dog could feel every firm touch he placed on Cole’s body, could feel the heat and excitement it pulled from him. It was intoxicating and terrifying.

Coming together took real effort when it felt like Dog had one extra of each part that he pressed against Cole but finally he was inside, slick and slow. Cole moaned and Dog felt the pleasurable ache of it even as he enjoyed the sweet tightness of the body around him. He was taking and being taken and there was really no difference between the two in the beautiful slide together.

Dog murmured something pretty and admiring, too overwhelmed to say it in anything other than Antivan, and Cole responded back in kind. It was the first time Dog had heard his mother’s tongue spoken in years and it filled him up with joy.

They hit the crest together in a sudden, gentle explosion and Dog realized he was clinging to Cole for comfort as they settled. Cole held him in his lean, strong arms, stroking his hair and humming a familiar song.

“How are you doing this?” Dog asked, feeling the swirl of another person’s emotions entwine with his own. 

Cole’s eyes were half-closed, his long fingers sliding through the dark strands of hair. He smiled slightly. “We all live with half of us speaking to the Fade. How can everyone else not hear it?”

It wasn’t a clear answer but Dog understood it in some part of himself that was no longer just him. A dark memory he’d never had resurfaced briefly and Cole’s face turned concerned. Dog swallowed. “I’m all right.”

“I don’t want you to feel the hurting,” Cole murmured, uncertainty returning to him in an instant. “You should feel happy because you’re good. Good people should be happy.”

“You’re good,” Dog said. He felt like he was the edge of something larger and he wanted to push through to the other side of it.

Cole just smiled gently at him. He leaned down and pressed his lips to Dog’s forehead and suddenly Dog felt bone-tired. As he began to fall asleep he could hear Cole’s voice low and certain.

“You know I’m not.”

 

Cole scrubbed himself hard in the shower, distractedly humming an Antivan lullaby as he communicated with Compassion. He’d lost control last night. It hadn’t been as devastating as when he’d formed his first link but it was still a problem and he wanted Compassion to help fix it.

Compassion was less eager to comply. He was a simple spirit in most respects, as all of them were, and he rebelled against anything that didn’t match his virtue. Cole thought that making Dog forget everything he’d seen in him was compassionate but his spiritship disagreed. Compassion wanted him to remember so that he could help. They fought stubbornly with one another in the relative silence of the bathroom until Cole convinced him that it was for the best. He didn’t want Dog to hurt because of what hurt in him and it was dangerous for him to know so much. It could be used against Dog.

“And he won’t be here long,” Cole said unnecessarily out-loud, just because he felt suddenly lonely at the thought. “Then Mr. Vaughan will come back and things will be like they were before.”

Compassion really didn’t like that idea but he reluctantly helped Cole build the mental walls in Dog’s head, gently pulling out everything that shouldn’t be there and forming the soft cocoon that would allow him to communicate with the spiritship. The idea of Dog flying with them soon helped distract Compassion but Cole knew that he would be having this fight again later.

As Cole began cleaning his hair, he heard rustling in the bedroom. Soon Dog sauntered into the bathroom, feeling relaxed and happy. He gave Cole a promising look through the glass door before undressing and joining him in the shower.

“Beautiful start to the morning, yeah?” Dog pulled Cole against him in the warm water. Cole eagerly slid his arms around his shoulders, pressing carefully around in Dog’s head to make sure everything was firm and in place. Dog leaned down and bit at his neck. “Slept like a little kid last night, love. You really wore me out. We keep on like this, we’ll never have time to fight Venatori.”

“We should fly tomorrow,” Cole said, more for Compassion’s benefit than out of real necessity. The Inquisitor would happily give him a little more time to get used to his new partnership.

“Love that idea,” Dog said and eagerly pushed him up against the cool walls of the shower. “I’ve an errand to run today and then we can practice a bit with my cards before showing the engineers how good we fit together.”

“Yes.” Cole had a task of his own to do, although he would wait until later.

Mr. Vaughan didn’t like to deal with people until at least after dinner and Cole didn’t want to make him mad.

 

It took Dog almost an hour to figure out exactly where to go, mostly because he felt so uncomfortable in the posh upper levels of Skyhold. The nobility walking around paid him no attention, which was fine but curious. He supposed that with that Qunari living there, his size didn’t strike them as particularly noteworthy like it usually did.

However he finally found the right door after a few embarrassing tries. Dog paused in front of it, debating with himself again like he had all morning. It had seemed like a great idea when he’d first woken up, sated in a way he’d never felt before. However he’d never done this with any of his old assignments and it felt strange to be doing it with one that was definitely temporary.

Dog frowned heavily at how that idea made him feel. He’d grown more fond of Cole in their brief time together than he’d expected and he didn’t like the idea of turning him back over to his neglectful handler. That was the big reason why he was here. He wanted to see this Vaughan Kendells for himself and figure out exactly what was going on. It might help ease his mind over the idea of Cole being handled by someone else again if he could talk to Kendells and perhaps hear his side of things. And if he didn’t like what he heard, he was prepared to explain a few things to the noble.

That thought gave Dog the impetus he needed to knock heavily on the door. Barely a second passed before a small, pretty elven woman opened the door. She stared at him with cool disdain.

“May I help you, sir?” The woman was stiff as she took in his scruffy appearance. 

“Like to speak with Mr. Kendells, if you please, miss.” Dog descended into the most gutter version of his gutter accent and grinned when she frowned deeper. 

“Mr. Kendells is resting. He’s only just returned to his quarters and can’t see any visitors.” The woman began to shut the door but Dog wedged his thick arm against it.

“It’s business, miss. I’m handling his mage and I’ve need to discuss the matter with him.” Dog was surprised when the mention of Cole made the woman visibly flustered. She gathered herself back up into the cool visage she’d had before.

“As you wish, sir.” The woman opened the door and Dog stepped in, immediately stunned by the opulence of his surroundings. “Allow me to tell Mr. Kendells that you’re here.”

“Take your time,” Dog said casually, lifting up a statue that looked distressingly Orlesian off of a small table and frowning at it.

The woman disappeared down the hallway and into another room and Dog let out a deep breath. This was not going to be fun.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is not a very nice chapter. I actually feel pretty bad. Kendells is the biggest dick in the universe.

“You’ve picked a terrible time for this,” Vaughan Kendells said in clear distaste. He was slouched in an elaborately patterned armchair in front of a roaring fire, rubbing his face with a heavy hand. “I have a raging headache.”

The room that the red-haired elf had led Dog to was impressive and clearly designed to be so. There were unnecessary archways and enormous vases and maybe even buttresses, if Dog understood what those actually were. Which he would be willing to admit that he probably didn’t. It was extravagant and loud and it set Dog’s teeth on edge even before Kendells started complaining.

“So you’re the one manhandling the boy.” Kendells sank deeper into his chair. “You might have brought him with you. He could have been useful and fixed this blasted head for me. Where did that damn girl go?”

Kendells shouted that last part at the door and winced. He leaned forward a bit towards Dog. “They’re completely unreliable, you know.”

Dog was pretty sure that he knew what Kendells meant by “they” and it gave him unexpected sympathy for the curt elven servant when she came back with a small restorative potion. Kendells snatched it out of her hand and swallowed it down quickly. He let out a sigh of relief before waving her impatiently away. Then he fixed his dark eyes on Dog.

“Levet, did you say your name was? That’s Orlesian, isn’t it? You don’t look Orlesian.” Kendells had almost instantly smoothed over the whiny pitch in his voice with a smooth condescension. Dog wasn’t sure which he hated more.

“I’m Fereldan. Northern parts.” Dog spared Kendells an edged smile and shook his head when the young woman offered him a drink from tray. “Not really here to discuss my family though. I wanted to chat with you a bit about Cole.”

The elven woman was staring openly at Dog and Kendells fixed her with a dark look. “Give us some space, girl.”

“Yes, my lord.” The woman dipped into a low curtsy and left, glancing back briefly at Dog before she was gone. He couldn’t quite read the intense look in her eyes but it made his shoulders tense more with unexpected dread.

With the woman gone Kendells seemed to relax a bit. He templed his fingers together on his knees and grinned openly at Dog. “Chat about Cole, eh? What exactly did you have in mind?”

“He’s said some things what worry me.” Dog tried to keep the menace out of his voice, aware that he was already angrier than he’d thought that he would be and worried that it would come out too easily. People who lost their temper lost their argument before they even started it. Or at least that’s what his old instructor had always told him when he’d been a huge, furious pre-teen always spoiling for a fight. 

“What sorts of things?” Kendells had a secret smile on his face that Dog longed to punch off of him. “About what?”

“About your relationship. You don’t seem real compatible, how he tells it.” 

“Ah. And yet we’ve flown that damned ship together hundreds of times for the past three years.” Kendells chuckled a bit and sat back. “I looked a bit at your file, Mr. Levet. You’ve never handled a mage longer than three months. You don’t understand how the fires dim a bit with time. You adapt.”

“Didn’t really sound like there was ever much fire present.” Dog set his large frame casually on an embossed wooden table and smirked a bit when Kendells frowned in disapproval at its creaking protest. The tiny act calmed him a bit. 

“It’s true that the boy is not entirely what I look for in a companion.” Kendells swirled his drink around in its glass and shrugged. “But we’ve learned to make do. There’s so much more to a partnership than sex, you understand. It’s about…cooperation.”

Dog crossed his arms stiffly and grunted. Kendells didn’t really seem like the cooperative sort. “Then what happened when you had your accident?”

“It was a silly mistake. It should have been a routine flight but the next thing I knew I was waking up in the hospital with the worst headache I’ve ever had in my life and our precious Inquisitor yelling her head off at me. The poor girl is so excitable sometimes. The Chantry is so taken with her but I don’t think they’re doing her any favors.”

“What did Cole say happen?” Dog asked, ignoring his opinion about the Inquisitor. Only a true idiot would describe Lavellan as a poor girl, even if it was to be a patronizing arsehole. 

“He didn’t tell you?” Kendells seemed to relax even more into his chair. He sipped a more than healthy amount of his wine. “How odd! I thought you said you were getting along so famously.”

“We’ve been a bit busy for talking,” Dog said slowly, letting the insinuation float heavy in the air.

Kendells pursed his lips and snorted sharply. “He has always shown a preference for more…simple pursuits.”

“What did he say happened?” Dog repeated the question, rankled and starting to show it.

“He said that Compassion was angry.” Kendells drank his wine deeply again. 

“It was on purpose?” Dog was amazed despite himself. A ship deliberately turning on its handler was almost unheard-of and certainly would be grounds for the scrapyard.

Kendells shrugged again. “The boy is easily confused, especially when it comes to that ship. He just lost control of it when I wasn’t paying attention. He’ll be more careful in the future.”

The way that Kendells said the last part, his face darkened and his voice low with promise, brought Dog to his feet. He was suddenly angrier than he’d been in years, a hot fury that volcanoed up in him before he could tamp it down with false humor and misdirection. He crossed the room and slammed his hands down onto the arms of the chair.

“Think you should be the careful one, yeah? That’s your fucking job, isn’t it? You’re making Cole do all heavy lifting while you sit on your arse thinking of what ugly statue to buy next.”

“You seem quite taken with dear Cole.” Kendells didn’t back away from Dog’s face inches from his. “What has he said to make you so eager to protect him, I wonder?”

“He don’t have to say nothing. A fucking nug could see you don’t know how to treat him!” Dog remembered the first moment he’d kissed Cole and how his surprise had torn a hole right through him. It made his hands clench at the plush fabric on the arms of the chair.

“And yet his closest friends haven’t marched into my home to berate me for the way I treat him. Which has always been with patience and understanding, despite the condition he was in when I got him.” Kendells chuckled at the look on Dog’s face. “Oh, you don’t know. How amusing.”

Dog swallowed. He suddenly felt uncertain and was disturbed by it. “I don’t want you touching him again. I’m gonna talk with Her Worship about getting him a new handler.”

“Feel free.” Kendells flared his nostrils in disgust. “Why don’t you ask _Her Worship_ where she found Cole in the first place? And then maybe you’ll reconsider threatening me in my own home over my own bloody mage!”

Dog clenched his fists tightly and until he didn’t he wasn’t sure if he was going to punch Kendells through his chair. 

“He’s not yours.” Dog loosened his fists slowly and stood back. “He’s better than the like of you.”

“You really don’t know him at all.” Kendells waved his hand. “If you please, I have a doctor’s appointment. I’m still terribly injured from his carelessness.”

 

Dog spent much of the rest of the afternoon angrily bullying the tiny cleaning robots that were in the darkened, twisting tunnels running under Skyhold’s main living quarters. The robots squeaked in protest when he stomped around the engineering hold but he didn’t hear them.

He’d never questioned a handler’s care of a mage before, even when he’d suspected that better matches could be made. The obvious solution to that sort of complaint would be for him to stick around longer and he’d never wanted that. So the obvious answer in this circumstance—Cole clearly miserable but unwilling to complain to his superiors about his abusive fuck-faced handler—made him sweat with uncertainty.

Kendells was a dick, that was clear, and a racist and he called Cole a boy too many times for Dog to assume that it wasn’t his primary form of address to him but he hadn’t actually said anything about actively mistreating him. And he was right in one respect—

Here Dog threw the Orlesian statue he’d taken across the dim hallway hard. The robots squealed and made like a tiny army towards the debris. 

Even contemplating that the smug fucker might be right about something made him furious but he was right that Dog didn’t really know Cole. He felt like he did, deeply in a way that didn’t even make sense, but he knew that it was more hormones than understanding at work. He’d had his hands on every part of Cole’s body over the past few days and it’d been glorious but that didn’t mean he knew what really made him tick or what had made him the man he was.

Dog stopped pacing the cramped space. One of the robots slid back over to him and began to eagerly clean his boot. He ignored its happy chittering and thought harder than he ever had before. 

If he really wanted to save Cole from the big, bad Vaughan Kendells, he needed to learn why he even needed to be saved. What had brought him to accept this partnership without complaint and what kept him in it despite the fact that he was obviously doing all of the work? 

And why hadn’t any of Cole’s friends ever marched into that gaudy den and tipped that prick onto his lazy arse before?

Dog thinned his lips and leaned over, gently picking the robot off of his leg and setting it on a particularly oily pipe.

He needed to talk to the Inquisitor.

 

Cole let himself into the apartment with shaking hands. Shianni was passing between rooms and saw him at the door. She came to a sharp stop and swallowed.

“Hello,” Cole said softly. 

“Hey,” Shianni said, her voice just as low. She looked over her shoulder and then came towards him. She carefully smoothed over a bump in the fabric of his hoodie. She nodded her head at the frayed edges at the bottom. “Leave that here with me. I’ll fix it for you.”

“Thank you.” Familiar laughter erupted from the den and Shianni’s face smoothed over into the stone she wore over her real face. Cole looked to the ground. “I should go see Mr. Vaughan.”

“Yes, probably.” Despite her words Shianni didn’t sound convinced. “He’s with Lords Jonaley and Braden.”

Cole let his head fall into a slow nod. He could feel them. It made Compassion twist and tense inside him and he hoped that he would be all right without the proper control. He didn’t want to hurt anyone. Even them.

He moved to pass Shianni and she clutched feather-soft at his sleeve. It was a startling action on her part and it drew Cole’s full attention. Her eyes were focused on the ground.

“That big shem you’re partnering with came by earlier.” Shianni looked quickly up to him, gaze hot and sharp. “He said some things. You should be careful in there.”

“Yes.” Cole slid his hand loosely over on top of Shianni’s small hand. “I won’t let Mr. Vaughan be angry at you.”

Shianni’s eyes filled up with sudden tears that she rubbed away just as fast. “I’m thinking of you, stupid.”

“I know,” Cole said kindly. “I’m not though. I don’t need to.” 

 

When Cole entered the den, the conversation stopped suddenly. He felt his eyes tug down to the floor but he didn’t need them to know that Braden and Jonaley were looking at him, amusement and outrage spinning in them in unequal measures. Kendells felt different and not just because Cole was feeling him entirely from the outside for the first time in years. He felt worse than angry. He was planning.

“So you’re not too good for us after all.” Jonaley sneered. “Did that damned Qunari have his fun with you? He was awfully eager to get you alone.”

“What a disaster that must have been,” Braden said lazily. “Those savages are brutal. I’ve heard that that Tevinter fop is covered in bruises. All under his outlandish clothes of course.”

Jonaley fought to keep the excitement out of his face but Cole could hear it ring in his head. He wanted to tell them that Iron Bull would never truly hurt Dorian, not in the way that enflamed Jonaley’s sadistic daydreams, but they wouldn’t have been very interested.

“We should see, shouldn’t we, Vaughan? Make sure you’re not getting back damaged goods?” Jonaley couldn’t completely disguise his eagerness as he looked over to Vaughan.

“I think I need to speak with Cole alone. Why don’t you gentlemen go down to the bar and have a few drinks on me?” Vaughan kept his voice light but anyone could hear the command underneath.

“What?” Jonaley stared in surprise. Braden was already on his feet.

“I think I was very clear,” Vaughan said, his tone growing sharper.

Jonaley scowled but a moment later he was barreling past Cole towards the door, checking him hard in the shoulder as he went. Once they were alone, Cole peeked up slightly to see if Vaughan was looking at him. He was and it made Cole clutch fitfully at his shirt sleeve.

“Do stop fidgeting. It’s distracting.” Vaughan rubbed his head. “This damned headache is back. Come fix it.”

Cole slipped quietly to Vaughan’s side and after a brief moment to connect to the sweet, bright energy of the Fade he was slipping his hands to his head. He felt it slide through Vaughan and he followed the sensation curiously for a moment, exploring the empty crevices where he used to be.

“Ah, much better,” Vaughan said with satisfaction. He opened his eyes and waved at Cole. “Stop hovering. Sit down.”

Cole dropped immediately to the ground, sliding his legs around awkwardly. He realized his mistake a moment later but it was rare that Vaughan invited him into his den and it hadn’t occurred to him to sit in the chair next to him.

Vaughan chuckled in dry amusement. “Have you entirely forgotten how civilized people behave in less than a month?”

“I’m sorry,” Cole said quickly and rose up to take the neighboring chair.

“You’re hardly to blame, I suppose. It’s the savage in you.” Vaughan laughed again. “Speaking of savages in you, that ridiculous new handler of yours came to see me today.”

“Yes. He thought he was helping,” Cole said. It made him feel warm inside to consider it but Dog shouldn’t have interfered. “I’ll fix it.”

Vaughan waved his hand impatiently. “It made me think. The time for my ascension may be at hand.”

Cole gripped at the cloth at the bottom of his oversized hoodie and hid his face in the cowl. “Yes?”

“That accident with Compassion may actually work in my favor. My recovery will look miraculous to those incompetent engineers and the Inquisitor is facing so much pressure from Ferelden and the Chantry that she’ll be forced to listen to my request.” Vaughan shrugged. “And if she doesn’t, well, we certainly know what to do then, don’t we?”

Cole shuddered hard and tried to force words out past the cold stones in his throat. He just made a garbled sound but Vaughan didn’t seem perturbed.

“Now, now, don’t make a fuss.” Vaughan regarded him for a moment. “Do you like that brute?”

“Dog?” Cole closed his eyes. “He’s very nice. Please don’t make me hurt him.”

“You make me sound like a monster. Haven’t I been good to you? Much better than you deserve after what you’ve done?” Vaughan waited for Cole’s slight nod before continuing. “I’ll admit, your little temper tantrum was partially my fault. I’m an only child myself. I don’t really understand sibling bonds.”

One of Cole’s hands moved from the bottom of his shirt to forcibly dig into the cushion beside him, gripping hard enough to tear. Vaughan chose to ignore that.

“Since I was at least a little to blame for our misunderstanding, I’ll do something nice for you. I’ll let you keep that peasant when I ascend.” Vaughan rubbed his face thoughtfully. “I did promise Jonaley that he could have you, but he’s been such a terrible bore lately.”

“He loves you,” Cole said quickly, unsure why he was sharing this secret now after all this time. He just knew that the thought of Jonaley handling him unsupervised was terrifying. 

“Interesting,” Vaughan said with a smile that made it clear that he already knew. “How does my plan sound? I will take command of this paltry operation away from that knife-eared bitch and you can keep your toy. So long as you remember who you really belong to.”

There was a moment—long and terrible—where Cole considered it as Compassion grew silent in his head. He told himself that it wouldn’t really be that different from how things were before except he would have someone with him that looked at him with warmth. Then the reality of what Vaughan was suggesting truly hit him. He was going to hurt everyone, not in the small ways that he’d done before, but on a devastating scale. And he would do it by making Cole an even bigger monster than he’d ever been before towards the woman he owed the most.

“I don’t know,” Cole said finally, unable to form any other words out of the horror he was feeling. 

“Don’t be absurd. This is what we’ve been building towards this whole time.” Vaughan sighed and rolled his neck. “I’ve been so tense since the accident. Help me.”

Cole stood, beginning to pull at the threads of the Fade again but Vaughan was reaching down to his trousers and pulling his cock out before he could even pull together a spell.

Vaughan closed his eyes. “Go on then.”

“I don’t want to,” Cole said. The words were a surprise even to him. It roused Compassion’s interest.

“Oh?” Vaughan opened his eyes and regarded him for a moment. “Have it your way. Never let it be said that I’ve mistreated you. You can go.”

Cole was turning when Vaughan spoke again, his voice low. “Do tell the girl that I need her a moment.”

He was on his knees before he knew it, reaching out and taking Vaughan in hand, familiar and slick and terrible on his tongue.

“See?” Vaughan sighed and patted his head like he was an animal. “Things are so much simpler when you just listen to me.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I went to a conference most of last week and took my laptop in the hopes of getting some fun writing done (and real work, I guess, whatever), only to discover that the Wi-Fi was so overloaded by the conference attendees that I could only get it to work from the hours of 2 A.M. to 7 A.M. I like to think that there were a few of us on at those times, furiously trying to write video game porn (and do actual work, ugh, fine).

“You shouldn’t have talked to Mr. Vaughan,” Cole said as soon as he came through the door.

Dog froze halfway up from the couch. He had been determined to speak with Cole before going to the Inquisitor with his concerns about Kendells but this wasn’t how he’d thought to start the conversation. He’d hoped that they could talk about Cole’s experiences and go to Lavellan together so that it wouldn’t seem like he was overstepping his boundaries.

Of course it looked like he already had. Cole wasn’t meeting his eyes but the stubborn jut of his pointed chin and the flush on his bare neck was evidence enough that he was angry. Of course it was odd that Dog could even see his neck outside of the bedroom.

“Where’s your hoodie?” Dog asked him, straightening up fully. Cole tried to go past him into the bedroom but Dog reached out for his hand. He tried to make it gentle, a touch instead of a grab but Cole pulled away and crossed his arms. 

“Did he hurt you?” Dog asked bluntly. He knew he’d made a mistake but he was suddenly willing to make a much bigger one if Cole said yes.

Cole did look up at him then, eyes bright and angry. Unexpectedly he shoved at Dog’s chest until he stumbled back onto his ass on the couch. “I’m not a stray in the streets to mend and defend. I hurt people and you talked to him and now he sees you. He wants me to make your pieces smaller until he can fit them inside something safe.”

“I don’t understand.” Dog put his hands on Cole’s arms. Cole breathed out in frustration and unexpectedly dropped down onto his lap, shoving his forehead against Dog’s shoulder.

“He said that I could keep you, mine to shape and break. That’s what I am. But that’s not what Compassion is. You can’t twist something that much from what it is and say that it’s the same.” Cole clutched at the fabric of Dog’s shirt. “The Inquisitor was wrong to keep me. She said that I wasn’t a monster anymore and promised to stop me if I was again. But she won’t.” 

“You’re not a monster, love. Look at me, yeah?” Dog slid his thumb under the curve of Cole’s chin and forced it up. Cole stared right through him. 

“You don’t know what I am. I showed you once and wiped it clean so that it wouldn’t rot inside you.” Cole’s blank eyes zeroed in suddenly on Dog’s mouth and he set his fingers on his lips. “I could do it again. You don’t have to know what you know.”

A cold chill shuddered down Dog’s back and for the first time he wanted to pull away from Cole’s touch. He forced himself to stay still against his long fingers. He reached his hands around his hips and set his voice low, “I like everything I know about you, love. I want to know more.”

Cole swallowed hard, putting his hands up to his face. After a lengthy pause he finally nodded. “Yes. It might be easier then. You’ll know why I need a leash. I won’t hurt you for him.”

“That’s good,” Dog murmured, not understanding but willing to say anything to keep Cole talking. His words were frightening and incomprehensible but Dog needed to know what was going on.

“After,” Cole said after another long moment just staring at him. He slid his arms around Dog’s shoulders and collapsed against his chest like the air had been let out of him. “We’ll fly tomorrow like I promised Compassion and then I’ll give you everything you need.”

“That’s a good deal, love. We’ll work this out together,” Dog rubbed Cole’s back, unsure of what else to do in that moment. Cole sighed, defeated.

“Will you kiss me? I think I like that the best.”

“Of course,” Dog said readily, happy to hear something out of Cole’s mouth that made some sense. He cupped his narrow chin again and kissed him. He tasted strongly of mint, as though he’d brushed his teeth for an hour before coming back home. Dog rolled his tongue against his and growled low in his throat when Cole pressed back hard.

They pulled away after a few heated moments. Cole was staring down again, eyes shadowed and his frowning mouth contemplative. “I lied. I like all of it the best.”

“Then you should get all of it.” Dog slid his hand under the curve of Cole’s ass and went to work. At least this was something he knew he could handle.

 

Cole lay against Dog on the small couch, cheek pressed hard against a large shoulder. Dog was breathing slow and steady in sleep. He was dreaming of food and comforting music that Cole had never heard before but liked immediately. It was soothing.

Soon Cole would kill Vaughan Kendells. He shuddered hard at the thought. Compassion’s unhappiness whirled around in him as he tried to decide what would be the best way. He could slit his throat in bed—and here he closed his eyes and sucked in air until he felt like he could breathe normally again—or he could finish the job he’d started before and blow a hole in dark center of Vaughan’s mind. It would be so easy. 

Of course he could just let Dog decide after he gave him full control. Dog had been thinking of hurting Vaughan for days, each fantasy growing more vivid until he’d actually met him and they’d tipped over into being truly gruesome. It was almost a relief to know that tomorrow Cole would have a chain around him again, that someone else would be in charge of the blunt knife that was his terrible magic. He wondered what Dog would do with him after he’d killed Vaughan and that thought was as terrifying as it was comforting. Dog was a good man. He would know what was best even if it was frightening.

The thought of Dog making his decisions starting tomorrow was soothing enough that he was able to close his eyes and reach for sleep. It was difficult to settle Compassion to quiet in a contemplative part of his mind, worried and weary and waiting, but he eventually managed it with the promise of tomorrow’s flight. 

Tomorrow he would be good for his new handler, as obedient and agreeable as the Templars always said mages should be. He would open his mind fully to him and perhaps after that Dog would help him save everyone else from his mistakes. 

 

The next morning Dog sat at the breakfast table and fanned out his box of practice cards onto the surface. He slowly set up the exercises, trying not to think about how odd Cole had been last night and how odd he was promising to be tonight. They’d fucked almost desperately on the couch after their conversation. It had almost felt like a goodbye and that was what Dog was pointedly not thinking about as he set up little piles of the cards.

“Those aren’t regular cards,” Cole said almost timidly behind him. 

He forced his mouth into a sly grin and waved one of the cards up at Cole. “Keen eyes, you. This is my own special set. Got it from a friend.”

Cole took the card from Dog’s hand and peered at the entwined couple on it. He set it down on the table and picked up another from the first pile of cards, this time of a winsome blond girl in a field with a dangerously thin shift on her slender body. Dog clucked at him and took the card away. 

“You’re not supposed to peek at all of them, love. Ruin the surprise.” He pointed Cole to the seat in front of him and picked up another card from the second pile. He glanced at it quickly and then held it up to his forehead. “What’s my card?”

“It doesn’t make it easier to see if you have it close to your head,” Cole said, tilting his head curiously. He looked so much more relaxed today that Dog almost wondered if he’d imagined the entire night.

“Makes me feel like it does. What’s my card?”

“I’m not very good at this.” Cole tried to lift up the corner of another card from the first pile and look under it but Dog slapped his hand lightly.

“That’s what you said about sex and we both know that wasn’t truth. Now stop stalling.” Dog let his sly grin grow sharper. “I give out good prizes for the right answer.”

“It’s a Chantry sister kissing another one behind a curtain,” Cole said quickly. “What do I get?”

“Love this one,” Dog said with feeling, looking down at the card. The bolder of the pretty sisters had flaming red hair and he’d wondered for years if it had been actually based on the Divine’s Left Hand or if it was a coincidence. There were certainly plenty of dirty cards containing pictures of people that looked suspiciously like the Champion of Kirkwall and his friends.

Cole opened his mouth and Dog knew that he was going to ask about his prize once again so he leaned forward across the table and kissed him quickly, sweet as a Chantry virgin. He leaned back and picked up another card from the second pile. He raised his eyebrows and put it up to his forehead.

“Really hoping you guess this one right, love,” he said.

“Um, it’s a man. A Warden maybe?” Cole scratched his neck. “He’s touching himself.”

“Yeah? Like this?” Dog reached over and gently slid his fingers down Cole’s cheek.

“No.” Cole sounded soft and pliable. It was immediately arousing, but also disturbing. Cole had been angry and desperate last night. Dog wondered where those emotions had gone.

“Didn’t specify, love,” Dog said chidingly. “You have to notice all the little details to get your prize.”

While ignoring Cole’s disappointed sounds, Dog glanced down at the three piles of cards on the table and picked up one out of the first pile. It was a buxom brunette half-spilling her bounty onto a bar counter. He held it up to his head. “What’s it?”

“I…don’t know,” Cole said. He pointed to the third pile. “Take one from there.”

“Don’t try to get ahead of me. You get one wrong, you gotta give me something to make up for it.” Dog pushed his chair back. “Come on then.”

Cole stood up and came over to him. He lowered his mouth to his and licked at his lips. Cole kissed him for a long minute, sure and certain. 

“That’s a beautiful prize, sweet,” Dog murmured when he pulled back. “Don’t know if I want you guess right after all.”

“Take one from this pile,” Cole said insistently, reaching behind him to the third pile and picking up a card. He slid onto Dog’s lap in a surer, more graceful way than he had last night and held the card up to Dog. It showed a broad-shouldered blond Templar with his back pressed to the handler’s seat of a spiritship while two black-haired mages worked his cock in tandem, their pink tongues reaching towards each other around his flesh.

Dog shivered as Cole pressed the card against his forehead and then hungrily kissed him again. He could feel Cole reaching down towards his belt, his long fingers brushing against him teasingly.

“If I guess right, should I do that to you or will you do that to me?” Cole asked in a low voice and the last of Dog’s thin control snapped. 

He picked him up and lowered him onto the table, displacing most of the cards from their neat little piles. Cole reached out and caught a few before they could drop to the floor and he fanned them out in his hand, studying them. Dog pulled at Cole’s leathers until he could slip his fingers around his hardening cock. He slid once, twice, up and down to the base. Cole breathed out hard but continued to look at the cards in his hands.

“This one is nice. They look happy,” Cole said and then closed his eyes briefly in pleasure when Dog roughly maneuvered him so that his long legs were draping off the table to make room for him to press against him.

Dog took the card out of his hands. It was a rather risqué one of a beautiful blonde woman with a heavy crown tipped to one side on her head as a masked elven woman worked her hand into her. He made a face as he pulled himself out of his trousers. “Orlesian, love. Too much masquerade.”

“I like it,” Cole said and then moaned when Dog pressed their pricks together, using his large hand to stroke them both. Dog tossed the card down onto Cole’s chest, nodding down at him.

“Let’s see another one,” he said. “We’re still practicing.” 

They practiced until they were too spent to pick up another card. Dog was delighted in the most obvious way but deep down he felt a renewed disquiet. Cole’s charts had indicated that his mental abilities were largely passive, almost oddly so for a healer, but he’d guessed almost every card right. In fact, as Dog mulled it over in the elevator as they left for the engineers, he’d gotten them right in a fairly set way. He’d missed almost all of the more mundane cards and guessed perfectly each one that contained a more risqué motif. The pretty mages teasing one another with their magic in an alcove as their handlers watched; the lean Tevinter slaver being whipped and mounted by his enormous slave; the leering pirate queen pleasuring herself with a scepter as her men celebrated their plunder with an orgy. All the favorites and more. 

Dog wished that he could say that he was surprised but as he examined Cole’s profile as they rode up, he realized that he wasn’t. He suddenly wondered how many of his thoughts were actually safe inside his head.

“I won’t take from you,” Cole said quietly. He was still looking forward. “Not again.” 

Dog shivered.

 

“That’s a lovely, strong bond there,” Dagna said, proudly beaming at their links on the screen as though she’d crafted them herself. “Dog, you see how your link is curving right in there where the old one used to be? You use to need days to get it to fill out so well with the old system.”

“Very nice.” Dog nodded in a polite way. He’d had a hard time tearing his eyes away from Cole since they’d gotten off the elevator but he’d never once looked back. Cole was eying the charts as though he was genuinely fascinated by their neural links.

“It’ll almost be a shame to pull it out again.” Dagna sighed. “That’s so much messier. I really need to get Hawke to sit down and talk about it more with me. His fleet is expert on dismantling and reestablishing links.”

“Can we fly Compassion now?” Cole asked softly. He was kicking his legs under the table and it was adorable and Dog really didn’t know what up was anymore. Cole terrified him and aroused him in equal amounts. He wanted to hide under a desk from him and possibly also hold his hand for the rest of the day.

“Oh, you really should.” Dagna turned her full bright smile on him. “Harritt’s down there now but I don’t think he’s really doing anything. Sometimes I think he just goes down to the docks to get away from me.”

Dagna giggled, which was also adorable, and honestly Dog was feeling like he was a bit cornered at the moment. 

He stood up suddenly and both Dagna and Cole looked at him. Dagna looked startled but the mild expression that Cole had been wearing all morning had faded into the hollow stare he’d had the other night. It was horrifyingly honest and what was the most unsettling was how it made him want to kiss his way down Cole’s thin neck and bite at his collarbone, just startle emotion back into him.

“Let’s get to that ship,” Dog said with false cheer and Dagna clapped her hands together. 

 

“Marvelous. Now Vitality looks like it’s ready for a bath and a hot toddy.” Dorian was pursing his lips together in a fetching way at Iron Bull as Cole and Dog approached them.

Vitality was, for reasons Dog didn’t really understand, half-covered in an enormous plaidweave sheet. Iron Bull looked proud as a papa as he carefully pulled the sheet more over the steaming front and patted the nearest surface. He nodded at them when they approached. “Hey, Kid, how’re doing?”

“I’m good, thank you, the Iron Bull,” Cole said in his politest voice and Iron Bull clapped him on the back before swinging his arm onto Dorian’s shoulders.

“Levet, you haven’t met my mage. This sexy Vint bastard here is Dorian.” Bull squeezed Dorian’s bared shoulder and grinned wider when he brushed his hand away in exaggerated irritation. “Dorian, this is Cole’s new handler.”

“Pleasure.” Dog held out his hand to Dorian, who seemed surprised by the offer but shook it just the same.

“Hopefully you hold up a little better than the last one.” Dorian sniffed. “It’s enormously inconvenient to go into battle with Bull when I don’t have a proper support ship. He throws himself into everything without thinking.”

“Unlike your cool and collected head, _kadan_?” Iron Bull laughed.

“I’m sorry,” Cole said. 

Dorian sighed. “Well, honestly, it’s not your fault, Cole. You didn’t do it on purpose.”

There was a pause that felt a little awkward. Iron Bull had sneakily recaptured Dorian’s shoulder with his hand and was stroking the skin near the top with small circles. He was staring thoughtfully at Cole but grinned when Dog caught him at it.

“You kids going out for a flight? We just got back but we could take Vitality out again if you want some backup. She can take a little bit to settle down anyway.” Iron Bull reached out and lovingly stroked the front of the serpentine behemoth.

“I suppose my own bath can wait,” Dorian said lightly but he looked excited in the idea of another flight. 

“Sounds like a good idea,” Dog said. The Venatori probably wouldn’t come this close to Skyhold but it would be smart to have a look-out just in case.

“That’s settled.” Iron Bull reached up and yanked the huge sheet until it was pooled on the ground. “Hear that, beautiful, we’re going back out!”

Vitality began billowing smoke in earnest, causing the nearby vents to turn on and the nearby engineers to glare at them all. Cole took Dog’s hand and pulled him away, towards the back of the ship to where his was sitting in wait.

Unlike last time Compassion had crafted a particularly large and comfortable-looking handler’s seat behind the pilot’s spot and when they approached, the top of the ship popped open in welcome. Harritt grunted at them in greeting.

“We ready to go?” Dog asked even as Cole began climbing up into the ship.

“It was ready a week ago,” Harritt said gruffly, rubbing his chin. “The ship’s working perfectly.”

“Good enough for me.” Dog nodded to him. He climbed up into the ship and settled into the cushioned seat. The controls in front of him were simple and he could see that Cole’s panel beneath him was just as basic. He liked that.

“You ready to go?” Dog asked Compassion in a low voice as he set his hand on the panel in front of him. He was charmed when it pulsed warm under his fingers in response. 

Dog took a deep breath. “Let’s do this.”


	7. Chapter 7

_She thought she saved her because they shared a face but it saved her too._ The voice was thin and breathy and so familiar that Dog was surprised to see Cole still setting up the controls for the flight beneath him, clearly paying him no mind.

 _Um, hello,_ Dog thought cautiously.

 _Hello. I made a place for you inside. Do you like it?_ Although the similarities were uncanny, the voice in Dog’s head wasn’t a total match for Cole. It was lighter and more curious, lacking the hesitancy that Cole infused in his sentences.

 _Are you really the ship?_ Dog asked, spreading his hand over the warm panel. He’d flown in ships so responsive that he would have sworn that it was like they were talking to him, but he’d never actually heard anything from them.

_No. I’m really a spirit. I had to be a ship to help. But I like flying. It’s like I’m home on the outside._

“Shit,” Dog murmured and Cole peered back at him.

“What’s wrong?” Cole asked, his face already more worried that his simple exclamation warranted.

 _He’s already torn and twisted from thinking of the ending,_ Compassion warned. _We should talk before we’re together again._

“Nothing’s wrong, love. Just worried I forgot to turn the oven off. I’m sure it’ll sort itself.” Dog nodded encouragingly at Cole until he turned his attention back on the panel.

 _You can only talk to me when I’m in the ship. When I’m in you?_ Dog was getting a headache that he hoped was just from trying to understand what was going on and not from Compassion turning his mind to mush in order to talk to him.

 _I’m always on the edges but now you’re tipped open, ready to control. Cole wants to give you the last decision but it’s not yours to make._ Compassion sounded disapproving. _Easier isn’t better. The bigger problem wasn’t the hand holding but the leash._

That pinged something for Dog. _Cole said he was going to show me why he needed a leash. What does that mean?_

_It means that our choices were wrong but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t still decide. Will you help us decide without force or forgetting?_

_I’ll try,_ Dog thought uncertainly.

_Trying is good. People are stronger when they try. Can we fly now?_

“Everything is ready,” Cole said quietly. “Should we fly now?”

“Yeah,” Dog said, breathing out. “Let’s go.”

 

There was nothing quite like flying. Compassion flitted around Vitality like a bee around a smoking, giant flower as they flew farther away from Skyhold. Cole barely paid any attention to the controls in front of them as they went. Compassion knew the way. Instead Cole let his mind stretch out, into the empty nothingness of space. With Compassion using most of his power to fly this was the closest Cole ever got to feeling like a normal person, mind full of nothing but his own feelings.

Except for Dog, of course, although even that was muted through the shield of Compassion’s outstretched buffer. Once Cole solidified the link between them that wouldn’t be the case so even though he was less afraid to be mired in Dog’s mind, he was pleased down to the pit of his worried stomach to be alone for a few moments. A few moments were surely safe. How much harm could he do in a few moments?

Of course it had only taken him a second to lose control enough to hurt Vaughan before and that was with him firmly entrenched inside him. Cole swallowed as they curved around the vastness of the Hinterlands. It had just been one small mistake.

_“You were rude to Jonaley this morning. I’ll expect you to apologize,” Vaughan said, voice casual as Compassion flew deeper into unexplored space._

_Cole slumped more into his chair. He’d been anxious and unsettled ever since Lavellan had asked him and Vaughan to explore the Hissing Wastes, deeply cloaked and quick. It hadn’t been the request that had worried him or even the idea of so much time alone with Vaughan while Compassion was distracted by flight. He’d been on edge because once again she’d sat him down first and asked him if he was happy with his handler, if there was anything he wanted to tell her, and he’d had to lie to her._

_He knew that she was worried. That had been clear enough when she’d sent Shianni in to spy on them a year ago. He’d known her plan the second she’d arrived and then of course Vaughan had known in the next second. He’d taken care of the situation at Vaughan’s request, finding whatever terrible secret Shianni couldn’t have anyone else know and showing it to her. He’d had a few to choose from. People always did._

_With Shianni giving the Inquisitor false, glowing reports weekly, Lavellan had hit a wall in her investigations. It frustrated her, Cole knew that, but it was for the best. However it still left him nervous and unhappy and completely unable to deal with Jonaley’s hand that morning on the small of his back, his voice murmuring insinuations in his ear._

_“I did what he wanted,” Cole said sullenly and regretted his words as soon as he said them. They made Vaughan turn away from examining the stars and focus his full attention on him._

_“It doesn’t matter what he wanted. It doesn’t matter what anyone wants except for me,” Vaughan said. “And I what I want is for you to act like a civilized person to my friends.”_

_Cole felt a surge of anger swell up in him. He tamped it down viciously but Vaughan still caught it. He narrowed his eyes and pressed harder on the links binding Cole’s powers to him._

_“Watch your temper, boy,” Vaughan warned. “We don’t want another White Spire on our hands.”_

_“That wasn’t because I was angry,” Cole protested, although he knew that wasn’t entirely true. He’d almost died in the Spire and would have if Compassion hadn’t burst through the walls to save him, knitting into him as he floated halfway to the Fade. There had been some anger there._

_“No? I’m sure that Lord Seeker Lambert’s people would be grateful to hear that you weren’t angry when you killed him.” Vaughan almost licked his lips in pleasure. He rarely bothered to remember all the dirty secrets that he had Cole collect for him but that was his very favorite. “And I’m certain that your father would be pleased that you weren’t angry when you stabbed him in the heart and killed your little sister.”_

_“Bunny’s alive!” Cole protested and the ship veered a bit off-course. Vaughan swore and slammed his palm on the controls, settling them in space. His eyes glittered with malice as Cole looked back at him._

_“If you can call that muddled little thing alive. Only the Avvar would let her fly a ship with the way she stutters about.” Vaughan paused a moment as he considered the image of Bunny in Cole’s mind. “Poor creature. It’s been a time since you’ve paid her a proper visit. Perhaps we should all go and see how she’s coming along.”_

_Three things happened in that moment, all of which happened so quickly that even when Cole considered it later he could barely remember the order._

_One, he got angry. Angrier than he’d ever felt before as he saw the idea forming in Vaughan’s head, vile and twisted._

_Two, Compassion stopped and turned almost completely off, reserving all of his power for life support._

_Three, Cole shoved ever last bit of Vaughan out of his mind and then kept pushing, pushing until he felt a pop and saw the blood trickling down Vaughan’s eyes._

_Vaughan opened his mouth and blood came out. In the next moment Cole would realize the magnitude of what he’d done and use up almost all of his power saving him. But in that one beautiful, horrifying moment he’d smiled._

 

“Those Venatori didn’t know what hit them,” Iron Bull said with rumbling satisfaction. He was staring blatantly at Dorian’s backside as the mage climbed down from Vitality’s cockpit. He winked at Dog when he caught him at it. “Dorian really knows how make an entrance, doesn’t he?”

“Was impressive,” Dog said lightly. “Something to be said for stealth though. Not as flashy but I think we might have gotten more while you was beating on that bigger ship.”

“Maybe.” Iron Bull shrugged and grinned at Dorian, who raised his eyebrow at him.

“Well, that was a fun outing but I believe we’re done for the day,” Dorian said to Cole, who had finally pulled himself away from the controls to join them on the ground.

“Oh, I’m nowhere near done for the day,” Iron Bull said. The two of them walked away, a little more hurry in their steps than was completely warranted.

“Let’s go get some food in us. Talk a bit,” Dog said, holding his hand out but not looking at Cole as he made his way towards the front of the hanger. 

Cole followed quietly behind, letting the silence build as they went down the hallways to the elevator. Once the doors closed Cole shoved Dog against a wall and kissed him, frantically and fiercely.

“Not strictly speaking what I meant by talking,” Dog said in-between kisses.

“This is what they’re doing, blood humming, bodies aching and bending. It’s the struggle that they like, even when they know the way it’ll end.” Cole reached for Dog’s belt and he hesitated a moment before pushing his hand away.

“Let’s put a break on that, love. I meant what I said. We need to talk.”

“After?” Cole sounded tense. The pale face he lifted up to Dog was pinched with worry.

Dog grabbed his hips and pushed up against him, rocking them together for a long moment. “Definitely after. You think those two are the only ones who get off on a bit of struggle?”

Cole raised his arms around Dog’s neck and pushed his head against his collarbone. “Whatever you want.”

Dog nodded slowly, face dark with his thoughts. 

 

“I don’t need to know everything,” Dog said and Cole felt like he’d been slapped in the face. He dropped his sandwich back on the plate.

“But you have to! It’s the only way I can let you inside.” Cole slide off the counter and fell to his knees beside Dog’s chair. He put his hands on his thigh. “You have to tell me what to do!”

“No. I’m not going to do that.” Dog put his hand in one of Cole’s and sighed. “Me and Compassion had us a talk while we were flying.”

“What?” Cole checked quickly with Compassion, who quietly confirmed. He felt suddenly betrayed. He hadn't even known that Compassion could keep secrets from him.

“I don’t know how you ended up this way.” Dog slid his fingers over the sharp curve of Cole’s cheek. “I’m hoping you’ll tell when you feel like you want to, not that you have to, but no matter what, love, I’m not going to be your new master. I want to be your partner.”

“I don’t need a partner,” Cole said, voice going cold in his distress. “I can fly Compassion without anyone. I did it for years and it was terrible. We were terrible. I need to be controlled.”

Dog was quiet for a moment, thumb sliding over his knuckle. “What do you want to do about Kendells?”

“Tell me what I should do! Should I kill him?” Cole felt like he would shake apart in his uncertainty. It was the right decision, he was sure of it, but his surety gave him pause. How could he possibly trust his own decisions after all the bad ones he’d made over the years?

“Do you want to kill him?” Dog asked, still caressing his hand.

“He’s bad. He doesn’t ever want to be better. He’ll hurt people and he wants me to hurt people for him.”

“I got that. Do you want to kill him?”

“Yes!” Cole shuddered once hard and his head fell to Dog’s knee. He tried to swallow down the lump in his throat and failed. “No. I don’t know. I want him dead but I don’t want to hurt people anymore.”

Dog went down onto the floor with Cole and pulled him into his arms, caressing his back slowly.

“I’ve got you, love. I don’t know what you did before and I don’t care. I know what you are now and it’s good. You’re kind and gentle and you should treat yourself like you treat everybody else.” Cole squeezed his eyes shut against Dog’s words but he could feel Compassion’s agreement.

“I don’t know what to do,” Cole said, hand curling in Dog’s shirt.

“We’ll figure it out together.” Dog lifted up his head and kissed his wet cheek. The kiss moved down slowly, to his chin, his throat, his shoulder. “I’ll help you.”

 

“I can read everybody’s minds. I’ve been able to since I was little,” Cole told Dog as they lay entwined on the bed. “I couldn’t understand at first that other people can’t. My father…it made him angry.”

Dog knew the message under that and it made him pull Cole closer to him.

“One day he was very angry. He’d been drinking too much and I didn’t want him to hurt my sister so we hid in a cupboard. She was little and scared and I needed her to be quiet so I tried to make her be but Da heard us anyway and…my mother had a knife. She was Avvar and she gave it to me when she died. He pulled me out of the cupboard and it all happened so quickly.”

“I’m sorry,” Dog murmured. Cole nodded.

“Lots of bad things happened after that. I realized that Bunny wasn’t breathing and then men came while I was trying to save her. I fought them with magic and some of them died but they took me away from her. Then they left me in the Spire. They forgot about me. Compassion saved me.” Cole closed his eyes. “We didn’t know what we were doing at first and we did terrible things together. My friend Rhys stopped us.”

“The mage that flies Faith for the Warden?”

“Yes. He’s my best friend. He helped me find the Inquisitor. She protected me from the Chantry until Mr. Vaughan requested a mage from her fleet. She didn’t know what he was. I didn’t really know. I thought that anybody would be better than just me.” Cole paused a moment. “I was wrong.”

“He’s got things on people. Shit you found out for him? That’s why you go along with it?”

Cole hesitated before answering, “At first it was just little things. He liked the gossip and when he was happy he was nice to me. But then he wanted more and he started to use the secrets against people back in his home. And then he started to plan to take over the Inquisition. He wants to use Lavellan’s power to control the Chantry.” 

“He’s got something on the Herald?” Dog wanted to ask what it was but that seemed like a slippery slope.

“It’s not about her. I know a secret about…Solas that would ruin things for Lavellan. Even Vaughan doesn’t really know what it means. He thinks it’s just elf superstition. But it’s big.” Cole peeked up at him. “I’ll tell you if you want.”

“No. No, I don’t need to know,” Dog said firmly. “What’s really important is that he knows.”

Cole considered that. “He doesn’t though. He can’t always keep all the secrets in his head. Controlling us was too big a strain for a normal person and he’s still broken inside from what I did to him. He keeps the secrets in a lockbox in his room and forgets most of them until he needs one.”

“Yeah?” Dog thought hard for a moment. “Can you get into the lockbox?” 

Cole shook his head. “It only opens for him.”

“Hmmm.” Dog rubbed his arm, scratching lightly up his sensitized skin. Cole shivered. “What exactly is his big plan?”

“He would start with Vivienne, make her his mage. He…wants her and she knows lots of people. He would gather power with her and me and then he would tell Lavellan about Solas. It would hurt her and while she was hurting he would turn the Chantry against her. He would tell them that an elf shouldn’t have that kind of power unchecked and make himself the Inquisitor.”

“He really thinks the others would go for that?”

“People can be twisted and turned. It’s easy to do.” Cole trembled against him. “I could make them walk away from her.” 

“His power’s all in you,” Dog said. “He can’t do any of this without you.”

“But I’m still his,” Cole murmured softly. “Lavellan can’t take me away from him without a good reason and he still has everything I’ve given him before. He’ll use it to hurt people even if I don’t obey him.”

“You’re nobody but yours. And we’re going to take back everything you gave him.” Dog tightened his grip around him. “I have no fucking idea how yet but we’re going to ruin him.”

Cole pressed against him and then blinked. “We’re not going to kill him?”

“You tell me that’s what you want and I’ll hold him down myself. I’d love to squeeze his thick neck until his bloody eyeballs pop out.” Dog relished the idea for a moment and then relaxed. “But you don’t want that, do you?”

“No,” Cole said. “He’d be better dead. It’d be safer. Compassion agrees. But I’ve killed so many people already. I don’t want anybody else to die because of me.” 

“Then we’re going to make him wish that he was dead. We’re going to take everything from him. Fucking flash prick’s gonna feel this for decades.” Dog grinned at him. “Now we just gotta figure out how.”

Cole lowered his eyes a moment, voice wavering in surprise as he spoke, “I—I think I might know how.”


	8. Chapter 8

“This is my new handler. His name is Robert Levet,” Cole said to Kendells. His posture was bent even worse than usual and his head was bowed down towards the floor, avoiding all possible eye contact. Dog would have been worried that Cole was just terrible at subterfuge if it wasn’t obvious that this was how he was when he talked to Kendells.

“Most folks call me Dog,” Dog said in the broadest way he could. He held his hand out to Kendells and was a little surprised when he took it. Dog fought every instinct in him to squeeze his hand until every tiny bone snapped and grinned around his hate. “Pleasure to meet.”

Kendells’s piggish eyes were pleased as he glanced at Cole. He clearly bought the idea that Cole had made Dog forget meeting him before. “The pleasure is mine, of course. I’m so happy that they were able to find someone to watch over Cole during this difficult time.”

“Happy to do it,” Dog said. He let his hand fall low and possessive on the small of Cole’s back. He smirked in a knowing way at Kendells. “Been fun.”

Cole gave Dog a small sideways look, almost smiling as he curled up close to him. Kendells leaned back in his chair and waved his hand at them in a tolerant way. “Indeed. I wonder, Mr. Levet, if I might borrow back Cole for a moment?”

“You’re the boss,” Dog said, light and flippant. He slid his fingers across Cole’s back as he pulled away, hoping that he’d made it clear that Cole had successfully turned him into nothing more than giant toy for him to play with while Kendells destroyed the Inquisition.

It was hard for Dog to walk out of the study and leave Cole behind—even if it was just for a few moments—but the two men he encountered outside the room were more than enough of a distraction.

“Hello,” Dog said in a booming, friendly voice to Jonaley and Braden. He’d promised Cole that he’d let him decide what would happen with Kendells but he hadn’t said anything about his friends. Dog grinned and the men blinked uncertainly at him.

 

“He remembers none of that unpleasantness from before?” Kendells asked but he was already completely convinced. Once the pleasure in his mind would have made Cole feel the closest he used to get to happy. Even now it tugged an uncertain flush from his cheeks and a feeling somewhat like pride to pool in his stomach. He ignored both and nodded.

“He doesn’t remember anything. Just…what we’ve done together.” And Cole did blush then, which confused Compassion. He didn’t understand feeling embarrassment when it came to sex.

“I’m sure that’s more than enough to occupy his mind.” Kendells chuckled. He gestured towards the armchair beside him. 

Cole settled back into the armchair for the second time that week. He was shocked when Kendells poured a second glass of bourbon and handed it to him. The bright amber liquid swirled in the glass as he held it close to his face. He’d had alcohol before, usually at Jonaley’s insistence, but he didn’t like the way it made him feel or the way that it reminded him of his father’s slurred complaints and changing moods. Cole took a tiny sip when it became clear that Kendells wanted him to do so. Compassion was always intrigued by the sensation and he let the spirit enjoy it while Kendells spoke.

“I want the two of you to move here. Immediately. My headaches are getting worse.” Kendells scowled, his pleasure temporarily dampened until he continued on. “You’ll be more useful to me here anyway, especially when beautiful Madame de Fer becomes a part of our little family. I’m sure she’ll reveal all kinds of interesting things to you.”

Cole nodded. Vivienne actually had few secrets that would strike Kendells as interesting, although she had plenty that she wouldn’t want to come out into the light. He didn’t think she should feel ashamed about any of them, especially the secrets of kindness and generosity when they wouldn’t have benefitted a woman in her position. He didn’t know why they embarrassed her.

“Now, I trust that your reeducation of your lapdog was thorough but I’d rather have something a bit more substantial. You understand, of course.” Kendells leaned forward in his chair. He drew out a small lyrium stone, the sort that the dwarves sold at a high price for its ability to record information.

“Of course,” Cole said, very softly, and for the first time since he’d met Vaughan Kendells opened his mouth to lie to him.

 

“So you must be Mr. Vaughan’s friends. Cole’s been aglow about the two of you.” Dog paused a moment as if considering and pointed to the dark-haired one with an unfortunate beard. “Braden.”

The man nodded and Dog grinned as though he was delighted by his memory. Cole didn’t have much to say about Braden. He was fairly minor nobility and spent most of his time blowing his family’s fortune on wine and women. He had a petty love of breaking things that belonged to Kendells and blaming it on Shianni, mostly because he liked to see a pretty elf frustrated and unable to do anything about it.

“And Jonaley.” Dog flicked his fingers at the larger auburn-haired man. He looked more like a doughy baker’s son than the lifelong noble playmate of Kendells. Cole also had few words to say about him but every word he had been more than enough. He was vindictive and sadistic and deeply in love with the only man he knew that held a greater store of those qualities than him.

“And you’re Cole’s new friend. Mutt, was it?” Jonaley pursed his mouth in a questioning way. Braden snickered.

“Dog. But you were close.” Dog leaned his broad back against the wall, scratching it casually as he pretended to think. “And I don’t know that I’d call me a friend for Cole. Bit farther along than that.”

“Oh, well, you’ll have to forgive my mistake. Cole has had so many new friends over the years. That Qunari savage. That Tevinter fop.” Jonaley turned to Braden. “Wasn’t he rather friendly with that smelly Warden fellow just a few months ago?”

Braden shrugged in disinterested agreement. Jonaley scowled and turned back to Dog. “He’s certainly always been very friendly to me.”

“Good to hear it. I like a friendly sort.” Dog pulled himself off of the wall and came close to Jonaley. Throughout his life he’d tried to minimize the effect his size had on people, aware that when they saw him they thought he must be more dangerous than he ever could be. However now he let the full measure of his height and bulk loom over Jonaley as he grinned in a dark, toothy way. “Course I’m a possessive friend, me. Once I start feeling friendly towards someone, I don’t much care for other folk being too friendly towards them. Even if they were friends before. Just the way I am. You understand, yeah?” 

Jonaley was a large man himself but he was small in Dog’s shadow. He swallowed and narrowed his eyes. Dog hoped to the Maker and His Bride that Jonaley was about to say something really stupid because he was tired of holding himself back from smashing in his ugly face.

“How wonderful that you’ve all met,” Kendells said in a bright voice as he emerged from the study. Cole slunk behind him like a long shadow. “Mr. Levet, I would like to rectify the small error our Lady Inquisitor made when she installed the two of you in those quarters downstairs. I insist that you both stay here, where Cole feels the most comfortable.”

“Now that’s an idea,” Dog said in his chirpiest voice, pulling away from Jonaley like they hadn’t exchanged any words at all. He made a beeline for Cole’s side, only half-pretending that he needed to slide his hand possessively around his. Cole turned his face up to him, bright and pleased, and Dog leaned down to kiss him in a way he never would have in front of people he didn’t hate.

Cole pulled back first, his hand firm and flat against Dog’s chest as he pushed him away like an overly affectionate pet. He turned to Kendells. “Can I show Dog my room?”

“Of course. It’s his room now too,” Kendells said magnanimously. Jonaley was frowning so heavily that it was drawing deep lines into his forehead but he forced a bland expression onto his face when Kendells turned to him and Braden. Dog snapped his teeth at Jonaley and then grinned as Cole started to pull him away.

“Are you really going to let that peasant live here? He’ll rob you blind in a day,” Jonaley said in a loud mock-whisper as they walked away.

“Let’s go get some drinks, gentlemen, and I can share my new plans for the future,” Kendells said in an amused voice.

Cole led Dog into a small, dark room. Lights on it was sparsely furnished, with only a small bed and a single chair. By itself it would be meager but compared to the opulence of the rest of the house it seemed like a prison cell. There was another door on one side and Cole went straight for it once Dog shut the bedroom door behind him. Cole opened the other door and Dog followed him through it to a much larger bedroom.

This one was even more ostentatious than the rest of the apartment. The huge bed had enormous oaken posters attached to the ceiling and the fireplace across from it was as big as half of the room they were in before. All around them were Orlesian antiquities. Dog frowned as he picked up an Orlesian vase. Cole watched him and swallowed almost nervously.

“He began collecting them after Madame de Fer’s handler died,” Cole murmured. “He thinks that she’ll like them.”

Dog set the vase down and gathered Cole up into his arms. He kissed him lightly on the tip of his nose and smiled gently down at him when Cole scrunched it up in confusion. “Your meeting go well?”

Cole nodded. “He believed me. He thinks that you’ll do anything for me.”

“That what he thinks?” Dog tightened his arms around him. “He try to get some dirt on me?”

“Yes.” Cole actually smiled, small and secretive. “I lied. I told him that you’re trying to hide from the Antivan merchant princes because you stole from them. He liked that. I read it in one of Varric’s books.”

“Juicy secret.” Dog backed Cole against a wall and leaned down to bite at his neck. “He thinks I’m your slave then? Thinks I’m here to do any wicked thing you order me to do?” 

“Yes.” Cole’s hands rose up his back to clench into his shirt but Dog saw something out of the corner of his eyes that caught his attention. 

“Is that the safe?” Dog pulled away from Cole and walked over to the large cabinet tucked half-behind a folding screen. 

“Yes.” Cole’s brows furrowed in surprise. “How did you know?”

“Nobles always try to hide up their goodies in everyday things but they make it too obvious. Why would you hide a big, beautiful cabinet like that behind an old screen?” Dog tapped lightly on the cabinet.

“Your father hid everything in a hollow space under the rug in the hallway. It left a bump and you smoothed it over when you took what was yours.” Cole sounded distant and when Dog turned back to him, he was staring intently at the rug on the floor. Dog crossed back over to him and gripped his arms, rubbing them.

“Let’s not ruin a nice day by talking about old shite, all right? We’re here to case this place and ruin that fucker so we can get back to what’s really nice.” Dog felt profoundly relieved when Cole’s faraway stare focused back onto him. Suddenly Cole wrapped his arms around his neck and kissed him hard.

“Yeah, like that,” Dog said as they separated. He clapped his hands decisively to get himself back into the situation at hand and not the situation he wanted in his hand. He opened up the cabinet and peered inside. He snorted. “Dumb bastard didn’t even bother disguising it in here. It’s plain as day.”

“Can you open it?” Cole pressed against his back as he looked at the safe, his hands snaking their way around to Dog’s stomach in a distracting way.

Dog hummed thoughtfully. “It’s pretty top of the line, love, but I think I could get it open if we get some things.”

He tapped at a sensor on the top and then a less conspicuous one on the bottom. “That’s prints on top and bottom.”

“Yes, he touches it before he puts the key in.” Cole reached out to caress the keyhole on the side, carved to look like part of the design.

“Keys are easy and this whole place is gonna be lousy with prints.” Dog squinted at another round sensor. “Eyes is trickier. Gonna have to think on that one. And it’s probably got some other tricks to it.”

“But you really think you can open it?” Cole asked again and Dog had never seen him look so hopeful in the brief time they’d known each other.

Dog turned around and pulled him fiercely against him. He reached down to take two decisive squeezes at Cole’s ass before nodding solemnly. “I’ll get this open, love. You leave that to your slave. You worry yourself on the rest of the plan.”

 

Dog’s words filled him with so many emotions that he couldn’t sort through them all. Cole pushed away all but the one that seemed the most appropriate in the moment and leaned up to kiss Dog again, lingering on the feel of his mouth against his, on his body pressing into him.

“Planning on giving me some orders, love?” Dog murmured in the voice he used when he said filthy, tender things to him. It made the breath catch in Cole’s throat. 

Cole pulled away reluctantly and tried to breathe out. He hated this room. He suddenly hated it more than he ever realized he could. He hated every unhappy, painful moment he’d ever spent in it.

Cole licked his lips. “I want you. In my mouth. Please?”

“Your wish, my command.” Dog was in such a hurry to get his belt undone that he tore into the leather but in seconds he was pulling his cock out. 

Cole dropped to his knees like he’d been pulled down and for a second just pressed his mouth to the warm skin of Dog’s rapidly thickening cock. The first night he’d spent in this room—the first night he’d spent with Vaughan—he’d been on his knees like this, fingers uncertain on the only other cock he’d ever seen in his life. Vaughan had been unimpressed by his attempts to arouse some degree of desire from him. He’d told him that he would have to practice to learn how to please him and he had. For nearly three years he’d knelt in this very spot and tried to make Vaughan happy, only to receive vague disinterest and condescension.

“Maker, look at you,” Dog said, low and heated. “Look at your pretty mouth on me. I wish you could see it.”

Without even waiting to consult him Compassion did slip through the butter-soft defenses of Dog’s mind to show Cole exactly what he was seeing. It made Cole gasp, not at the sight of his pale face flushed with excitement or his mouth slipping full around Dog’s cock, but at the genuine desire that was filling every corner of him. It was nearly too much to feel Dog’s want and his own as well so Cole pulled back the flowing strands of magic that allowed him to follow Compassion into his head and began sucking on the flesh in his mouth until it slipped snug up and down his throat. Cole moaned.

“That’s so good, fuck, you’re treating me so good with your sweet little mouth.” Dog clutched at Cole’s shoulders and he could sense that if he worked just a little harder that he would spill down his throat. And he would swallow it all down, every last bit, and not because it was what he’d been taught but because he wanted it. But he wanted something else more. Cole pulled away.

Dog moaned, half in disappointment, but Cole was already taking his hand and yanking him over to the big bed. Cole tore off his clothes and threw them blindly to the ground before crawling up on the bed. He settled near the top and glanced over his shoulder. Dog was just looking at him but that look was already more satisfying than anything he’d ever gotten on this bed. Cole whimpered low in his throat in sudden need and slid his knees wide, lowering his head down towards his folded hands. He barely heard his own soft, desperate pleas, “Please, please, like this.”

Vaughan always took him from behind, just like he had that first night. Cole had been afraid—of pain, of doing something wrong—but the main things it had been were cold and perfunctory. Vaughan had fucked him until he’d spilled and then he’d banished Cole to the bathroom to clean himself up. Cole had taken his shaking legs into the huge bathroom and stared at his body in the mirror until he heard Vaughan’s soft snores. That had been the first night he’d touched himself in the shower, holding his hand to his mouth to guard against the room’s loud echoes. 

“Please,” Cole repeated on a breathy loop until Dog dipped into the mattress and laid his hand on his back, fingers spread out against him. Cole moaned in relief as he felt the hard head of Dog’s cock push against him and then into him.

“You’re taking my big prick in like you was made for it, aren’t you? Does it feel good? You feel so good to me.” And Cole wanted to tell Dog that he did feel good, that he felt like everything good in the wide universe, but then he was thrusting hard and steady into him and Cole forgot about everything but the friction and heat.

“Don’t forget about this pretty prick here,” Dog said and reached under him to where Cole was leaking down to the expensive bedcovers. Cole rubbed his face against his hands in shock as Dog began to stroke him in time with his movements. “Gonna wring out every drop in you, love, and then come back for more.”

“Yes,” Cole groaned. His cries were loud in the cavernous bedroom and he wondered for a brief, delirious moment if the room would think that he was a stranger. It had never heard him sound like this before. He rose up, pressing his back against Dog’s chest and reaching up blindly for the back of his neck. He moved with him at a faster pace, his other hand slipping down to clasp to Dog’s big hand sliding along him. 

“Beautiful,” Dog said and Cole’s hips jerked in surprise when he realized he was talking about him. Dog bit at his ear and panted hot against him, “You’re fucking beautiful like this, sweet.”

That was what it took to drive Cole over the edge, white spots blinding him as the pleasure spilled out of him, into him. He could barely recognize the sounds he was making as something that could come from his mouth.

They collapsed against the bed with exhausted cries, Dog falling heavy onto him and then laughing away. Cole followed him until they were curled up warm and comfortable together, staring up in the ceiling.

“The fuck are those things?” Dog asked throatily, stroking down Cole’s arms. Cole followed his eyes to the cherubic figures carved into the molding.

“He said they were everywhere in Orlesian homes,” Cole murmured, curious. Vaughan had installed them at significant cost. 

Dog laughed. “He’s got worse going for him but that prick’s the dumbest arsehole I’ve ever heard of. And I’m no genius. But if those are Orlesian, I’m a bloody Marcher.”

“Oh.” Cole considered that a moment and then dismissed it. He cuddled in closer at a sudden thought. “We should take a bath. His is bigger than my room.”

Dog was out of the bed and pulling him along with him before Cole could say anything else. He laughed in open pleasure and while he knew it was the first time he ever had in this room, the thought didn’t give him a moment’s pain. He felt too good for pain.


	9. Chapter 9

“Stop,” Cole said firmly even though his hands were shaking as he stretched them across Dog’s broad shoulders.

Dog let out a soft huff of frustration but obediently stopped moving, his hips stilling completely under the tight cage of Cole’s legs around him. He leaned his head back for a moment as he collected his breath and then just looked up at Cole through dark hooded eyes. His fingers tightened around Cole’s hips as if by reflex and then he deliberately loosened them, one finger at a time.

Even as Dog’s breath began to even out Cole found that he couldn’t calm his own. He breathed out hard and tried focus on anything other than the hard cock inside of him. It was almost impossible when all he wanted to do was let Dog continue with the slow, steady movements he’d been doing before. Make that almost all he wanted.

Cole wasn’t really sure why he enjoyed this game so much. It had started by accident their first night in Vaughan’s apartment and then became a bizarre ritual carried out when Cole felt anxious. There was only one rule, never discussed but followed explicitly each time he’d done it. It involved telling Dog to stop when things were starting to get good and then waiting until he was sure that Dog wouldn’t be able to hold back any longer. However it never got to that point. Dog always managed to outlast him. 

It gave him a strange sort of thrill, one that he enjoyed even as it unsettled him. Compassion, nestled deep in his mind during these games, certainly didn’t understand it within the limited attention he paid to sex. But Cole felt like he needed it, more and more each time. He thought that eventually he would find the point where Dog wouldn’t listen anymore and then he would finally know. He wasn’t completely sure what he would know but it seemed important. Compassion had his own ideas on that front but Cole wasn’t interested in them. Spirits didn’t know everything.

“Stop,” Cole murmured again, even though Dog wasn’t moving. He was saying it more to himself at this point, as his legs trembled under him from the strain of holding back.

“I got you, sweet, not moving a muscle,” Dog said and closed his eyes when Cole caught his hands up in his own and pushed them up to the front of the bed. Dog’s cock twitched pleadingly inside him and Cole moaned, his head falling down. Dog shrugged apologetically, his grin wry. “Except for that one.”

Cole shuddered and reached down into himself, nudging past Compassion to touch the soft reserves of magic lingering in him. He gripped Dog’s hands tighter in his own and pushed a bright tendril of vitality out, spiraling it through them both.

Dog swore but stayed almost completely still, his only other concession to the rush of energy flowing through him being his hands gripping Cole’s even tighter in return. “You like teasing me, sweet? Like feeling my big prick jumping inside because it wants deeper in your tight arse?”

Cole barely heard his words over the currents of energy making his muscles twitch and tense. He moaned, falling forward on Dog’s chest and gasping when his hard cock slid across the hard planes of Dog’s stomach. 

“I like it too,” Dog said, his voice low. “Love all the pretty noises you make when you tease me. You’re winding yourself up even more, aren’t you? Making it hurt so good?”

“Yes,” Cole gasped out, untangling one of his hands in order to press his fingers to Dog’s mouth. Dog grinned against them and licked out, his tongue warm and soft against his skin. Cole moaned again when Dog took his fingers into his mouth and sucked wetly on them.

Suddenly it was too much. Cole hit his own wall of restraint and went careening off of it. He began moving his hips into Dog’s lap, frantically taking him in and out with movements that lacked all sense of coordination or skill. He just knew he had to have him deeper, faster, harder.

“That’s right,” Dog said in a near whisper and then groaned loudly. His next words were said equally quietly even around his own rough moans, “You let that fucker know you love this. You let him hear how good you sound right now. Fuck!”

The last word was said loudly, an exclamation of surprise as Cole bounced down one last time, hard before he came violently across Dog’s stomach and chest. Cole released Dog’s other hand and stretched out against him, panting lightly. Every muscle in Dog’s body was tense as Cole leaned up to murmur tiredly in his ear, “Don’t stop.”

Then Cole was staring up at the ceiling as Dog flipped them over and began fucking him in earnest. It didn’t take him long before he moaned out, loud and triumphant, his hands gripping Cole’s hips tightly as he came inside him. Cole closed his eyes in pleasure at the sensation.

“Fuck,” Dog said quietly, rolling his head back as he let the last shocks of Cole’s magic slip through him with his orgasm. He looked down and grinned broadly. “You’re a fucking genius, love.”

He slid out gently and stretched out alongside Cole. Cole pressed up against him hard and was momentarily grateful that Vaughan had decided after the first night to put them in another room. He’d only done it because the squeaking bedsprings of Cole’s old, tiny bed had been egregiously loud—much to Dog’s delight—but this bed was bigger and softer.

The thought of Vaughan brought Cole back to himself and Compassion was roused from his quiet contemplation of whatever spirits thought about in order to remind him of what was happening.

“Mr. Vaughan has his last doctor’s appointment tomorrow. Everything has to happen then.” Cole curled up more into the warm comfort of Dog’s arms around him. He was going to talk to Vivienne tomorrow and while he didn’t know exactly what she was going to do, he had a feeling that what was happening between him and Dog was in its last days.

Dog kissed the side of his head lightly. “I’ll get that safe open, love. Take all those nasty secrets out and make them history.” 

Cole nodded and pressed his forehead to Dog’s shoulder. His last words before he fell asleep were from both him and Compassion, “Thank you.” 

They felt like goodbye.

 

“Speak up please, dear. And don’t slouch.” Vivienne folded one of her shapely legs over the other with casual grace as she regarded Cole sitting in one of her tall Orlesian chairs.

Cole felt his shoulders straighten almost on command at her tone—light and airy on the surface but solid as steel underneath. Vivienne spoke to him with kind authority, like she did with all the young mages but there was there was always an uneasy note to her words. She could feel that there was something wrong with him. She had since the beginning. She might even be relieved when he confirmed her suspicions.

Right after she froze the blood in his veins.

“I want to speak with you. About Mr. Vaughan.” Cole twisted at the edges of his sleeve and then forced himself to stop when her eyes lit on the movement.

Vivienne set her teacup down onto the tray without so much a clink and set her hands in her lap. Her voice was gentler than he’d ever heard it before, “Yes, my dear?”

He knew the thoughts that were running through her mind, even without taking a peek inside. They were the same thoughts that had been floating in Lavellan’s head for years, the same thoughts that Iron Bull harbored deep down where even he didn’t examine them closely because then he’d have to do something drastic. They were all so right and so wrong.

“He…wants you to be his mage,” Cole said after a long pause. Compassion stirred forcefully inside of him even though he knew that it wasn’t really going to happen. He wouldn’t let Vaughan take another mage, even if it meant killing him.

Vivienne laughed lightly, politely, and picked her teacup back up. “How flattering, of course. But one wonders why he would send you instead of asking me himself?”

“Because…,” Cole twisted the sleeve of his hoodie so hard that the fabric tore under his fingers but he managed to press on, “He wants me to make you say yes.”

There was silence. Dangerous silence. Even though Cole had expected it, even though he’d prepared himself for the reality of what telling Vivienne the truth would mean, he still felt so scared that he wanted to take it back. Vivienne believed very strongly in the danger of magic. She would understand so much better than the Inquisition members who would be kinder to him in this moment.

“However would he imagine that you could make me do anything?” Vivienne’s back was ramrod straight and when she looked down at him past the elegant slope of her nose, his words did sound foolish.

“The same way I’ve made other people do things.” Cole’s shoulders drew back in as he thought over the years. “I can…see more than people know.”

Vivienne’s voice went cold as the chill that was suddenly in the room. “How much more?”

Cole’s mouth worked wordlessly for a moment as Compassion swirled inside of him. He wasn’t sure which one of them eventually answered, “Everything.” 

 

“You’re not supposed to be in here,” Shianni said from the doorway to Vaughan’s room. Dog barely glanced back at her from his position in front of one of Vaughan’s cabinet. Shianni’s eyes narrowed when she saw the safe through its open doors. 

It made her skin crawl to agree with Jonaley about anything, even just in her head, but it looked like Cole’s new handler was a dirty thief.

Dog rubbed his chin and turned back to the safe. “Yeah, yeah. Do you have a pair of pliers, love? Small size, maybe?”

“Get out of here.” Shianni strode into the room. Fury was practically steaming off of her. If something went missing, Vaughan would definitely blame her first. He thought that all elves were liars and thieves. Cole generally shielded her from the worst of Vaughan’s abuse but he would still make life unpleasant for her.

“Can’t. Promised Cole I’d get this fucking thing open today.” Dog crossed his arms and closed his eyes as if he was thinking hard. Shianni thought that it looked like he was having trouble with it.

“Cole wouldn’t ask you to steal from Mr. Kendells.” Shianni pursed her lip together. Cole was a shem like the rest of them but he lacked the sort of inherent indecency that seemed to be their birthright. 

Dog opened his eyes and regarded her curiously for a moment. “You don’t know what’s in here? That fuck has all your secrets locked up tight. You should want them back.”

Shianni felt like the large shem had pushed her to the ground. She swallowed around all the fear that rose up in her throat. Like so many of her other emotions, it eventually came out as anger.

“Like I trust a shem thug to give them to me!” Shianni crossed her arms over her chest. “You made Cole tell you about this. You want the secrets for yourself!"

And Cole had fallen for it so easily, the silly, stupid boy. She’d been worried for him when Dog had first shown up. Dog was big and coarse and his hands ran to Cole’s side like they were glued to him. She’d felt sick for Cole right up until that first night when she’d heard something she never had in all her time of being a reluctant voyeur to the noises coming from Vaughan’s bedroom, actually legitimate cries of pleasure. They were too high to be anything other than Cole’s breathy, surprised moans. 

She’d stopped being so worried for him in that regard but it hadn’t put her mind at ease, especially when Vaughan accepted the nightly (and often daily) distractions with a kind of benign dismissal. He’d been spending more and more time at the bar while Cole and Dog spent more and more time in every room of the apartment. Obviously the big shem was Vaughan’s new muscle and his odd payment was coming in the form of constant, loud sex. Shianni would never understand humans.

“Would I have to live here if I did?” Dog grimaced at his surroundings and then waved his hand at her. “Don’t want nothing like that, love. Just want to help Cole ruin that prick’s life.”

Shianni sat down on the footstool next to Dog, somehow making the movement as furious as her voice. “I don’t trust you, shem.”

“Seems fair.” Dog let the silence grow between them as Shianni tried to process what was happening. “But honest, love, do you have a little pair of pliers?”

 

Vivienne checked the lock on her door and then stood in front of it, her back to Cole still in the chair. “Does anyone else here know what you can do?”

“Yes, but only a few.” Cole thought about it. “And my sister. But she only knows sometimes. It's hard for her to hold onto the things that frighten her.”

“How did this escape the notice of the Templars?” Vivienne turned to him. 

Cole lowered his head, surprised that after all this time he could still feel that anger fresh and new. “They never tested me properly. There was a new Templar. I was the first mage he ever oversaw. When they took me from my home…he was scared of what he saw. He put me away and forgot to add me to the lists. I would have died underneath the tower if Compassion hadn’t saved me.”

Compassion burned bright in his chest for a moment, warming him like he had all those years ago, filling the weak and desperate parts of him so that he could escape.

“The incident with Lord Kendells now makes much more sense than it did before. An untrained and angry young mage is very dangerous and one as powerful as you is even more so.” Vivienne folded her hands together. “Why have you told me now?”

“I want to stop him.”

“You could stop him at any time. It would be a child’s game to you.” Vivienne looked him over with a sharp, contemplative stare. 

“No, I…” Cole shivered inside his hoodie. “I don’t want to do that again.”

“A fine time to become squeamish.” Vivienne walked past him and swept down into her chair once again. She picked up her teacup and took a drink. “This could ruin the Herald’s reputation. I won’t have that. The darling woman has enough to worry about. We’ll solve this little matter ourselves and then you will submit to a new inhibitor. Clearly the one you have now is inadequate. And I will assume responsibility for your proper instruction in magic. Quietly. The Herald allows the mages to have too much freedom. I’ll not allow such negligence with you, my dear. It’s far too dangerous.”

Cole nodded. It was much kinder than he had expected or even wanted.

“And you will speak with a friend of mine. A therapist. Very gifted in dealing with troubled young people like yourself.” Vivienne looked at him sharply when Cole frowned at the idea. “There will be no discussion on this matter. If you ever intend on resuming your work, I must believe that you can be trusted to control yourself.” 

“All right,” Cole said quietly. He didn’t want to talk to a stranger about every thought that twisted dark and deep inside of him. If his powers didn’t get him kicked out the Inquisition, then surely a session with Vivienne’s friend would do the job. They would lock him away again and this time it wouldn’t be because of incompetence.

But that was the price he would have to pay. Ultimately it was far better than what he deserved. He might be able to convince the Inquisitor to give Compassion to another mage and Dog would continue on to his next adventure, far away.

“Of course it’s all right, darling.” Vivienne swung her leg up again, long and beautiful as the rest of her. “Now am I to understand that you’ve come to me with some sort of plan?”

 

Dog grinned broadly when he heard the final click from the safe and the door swung open. Shianni hovered close over his shoulder as they peered inside.

It wasn’t particularly impressive. If he’d opened this safe under different, less noble circumstances, he might have closed it back up again and stolen a vase instead. The only thing inside the safe was a neat pile of small memory stones, twinkling lightly in the artificial light. They all had names attached to them in neat, steady script.

As Dog peered inside Shianni’s hand shot past him and closed around a small stone close to the back. She was shaking as she looked at her name on the stone.

“Probably gonna need a hammer with that, love,” Dog suggested.

“Shut your face,” Shianni snapped but then paused. “What are you going to do with the rest of them?”

“Already said, didn’t I? Take a hammer to them.” Dog leaned over and took a closer look at the stones. Several of them had Cole’s name neatly written in what Dog already recognized as Cole’s handwriting. It made him sick to see it. He gathered them up and shoved them into a pocket on his coat before examining the others. He whistled in amazement. “Paranoid bastard, he’s got stones in here for both of his fucking friends, Braden and—”

“What the hell are you two doing in here!” Jonaley shouted from the doorway of Vaughan’s room. Braden looked faintly amused at his side.

Dog blinked in surprise and met Shianni’s suddenly wide eyes. “There a fucking convention in here today I didn’t know about?”

 

“I’m thrilled at the idea, darling,” Vivienne said to Vaughan, her tone a perfect blend of regal politeness and respectable distance.

Vaughan sat back in one of Vivienne’s chairs, beaming smugly. Beside him Cole shrank more into the folds of his hoodie. He didn’t have to fake the nervousness and tension Vaughan would expect from him in this situation.

“Happy to hear it, of course,” Vaughan said in an equally upper class tone of polite disinterest. “I hope you understand why I’d prefer to keep Cole and his handler on staff. The poor boy would be lost without me.”

“Certainly. We’ll be quite the merry household.” Vivienne rose in a single, fluid motion. Vaughan’s eyes were hungry on her body as he stood as well.

“I’ll need to speak with the Inquisitor but I’m certain that she’ll approve. Perhaps we should speak to her together. In the morning, after we’ve confirmed our compatibility to our satisfaction.” Vivienne offered Vaughan her arm.

“Of course.” Vaughan was practically drooling at the idea. It made Cole feel a revulsion towards him that he never had before. The man was so small. He should have seen how small and pathetic he was from the beginning. It made him feel even smaller to think that he’d allowed this man to control him and even welcomed it most days.

“You have to go to the doctor,” Cole said, too quickly. He lowered his head as Vivienne and Vaughan turned to him and he picked at his sleeve. “You have that appointment to clear you for duty.”

“I almost forgot.” Vaughan laughed lightly and pressed his hand down in a friendly way on Cole’s shoulder, squeezing. “I hope you’ll come with us, for old time’s sake.”

“Yes, I’ll come with you.” Cole nodded and clenched his fist in the long cover of his sleeve. This was it.


	10. Chapter 10

“I won’t ask again, you peasant. What the hell are the two of you doing in here?” Jonaley balled his hands into fists at his side even while Braden smirked at them.

“Maybe he gets to play with all of the help,” Braden said with a wistful laugh. “Such special treatment.”

Shianni tried to think of a believable excuse that wasn’t one of Braden’s disgusting insinuations but before she could put two words together, Dog stomped over to the other side of the room and slammed Jonaley against the door.

Braden’s laugh ended on a high note and he immediately looked at Shianni as if she had an explanation for him. Instead of that Shianni closed her fingers over the stones Dog had shoved into her hand and glared back.

“I don’t like you,” Dog said and squeezed Jonaley’s neck until he choked on his protests. “I been trying to keep my head about me through this but you just rub me the wrong way.”

He squeezed harder when Jonaley tried to push him away. Dog lifted up his other hand to show one of the memory stones to Jonaley. “Told Cole I didn’t care about all of your boss’s dirty secrets and I meant it. But I’m thinking an exception for you sounds just right. What do you think, love? You wanna know what bullshit this prick’s been hiding?”

Shianni squeezed the stone in her hand. Every moment of humiliation and scorn she’d been subject to since she’d agreed to the Herald’s request flashed through her mind and she nodded, briskly. “That sounds good.”

“Yeah, right?” Dog pressed against the side of the stone and it began to glow, brighter and brighter until voices came floating out of it. One was vague and nervous, while the other was amused and smug but both were familiar.

“Why don’t you like Jonaley, Cole? I think he’s grown fond of you,” Vaughan said through the stone. He sounded amused.

“I don’t know.” Cole’s voice was thin and the sound of it made Shianni tense.

Vaughan laughed. “Mages are so emotional. But I’ll do something nice for you since you’ve been behaving yourself. I want you to tell me something interesting about Jonaley, something he wouldn’t want anybody to know.”

Cole sounded both surprised and disturbed. “But he’s your friend!”

“Of course.” Vaughan laughed again. “It’s almost more important to know these things about your friends. You never know when you might need to change that situation.”

Jonaley’s eyes—which had been boring holes into Dog’s own eyes—swung over to the stone in shock.

“All right,” Cole said quietly and the stone was silent for a moment. When Cole spoke again, his voice was dreamy, like he was speaking while asleep. “He never asked so she never told but he could see the shape of the gardener’s face on the boy, could hear his peasant ignorance in every word and failed lesson. He would wait until she gave him a real heir and then he could make the mistake disappear. But then she died and he was left with her betrayal.”

“Incredible,” Vaughan was clearly delighted at the information. “So the rumors are true. Jonaley is a bastard.”

Braden had gone from staring at the stone to gaping at Jonaley, comprehension slowly growing on his face.

Dog clicked in the back of his throat and loosened his grip on a suddenly limp Jonaley. “Shame that. Too bad you’re not Orlesian and that’s the first I’ve ever said that. They don’t give any shits about bastards keeping their names. But a Fereldan bastard? You’re just fucked if people know, aren’t you?”

“That’s-,” Jonaley swallowed hard before his face darkened with rage, “-that’s a lie. I am my father’s heir! That mage freak is just running his whore mouth!”

Shianni wasn’t sure if that was the end of Jonaley’s rebuttal but once Dog punched him hard in the face, that’s what it became. Jonaley went back hard against the wall before sliding down into a dazed slump and passing out.

Dog winced and flexed his fingers for a moment before gesturing to Braden. “Think I might have gotten some teeth with that, yeah? Fucking hurts. I hate hitting people. But it gets easier once I get going.”

“Why don’t I get going instead?” Braden smiled weakly. “You all seem like you have things to do and I should probably see to my own affairs.”

“That’s real smart, friend. I think you might see to those affairs right off this ship.” 

Braden nodded and began to turn around. Shianni spoke up, “Wait!”

Dog and Braden glanced over to where Shianni was standing in front of the safe. Once she was sure that she had his attention, Shianni lifted up one of the stones in her hands and turned it over until Braden’s name showed clearly on the front.

“You have five of these, my lord,” Shianni said and felt a savage grin cross her face. “You must have been very naughty these three years. I wonder what your family would think if they heard one of them?”

“There’s no need for that, Shianni. I’ve only ever been teasing you, just a few jokes.” Braden held up his hands in a placating gesture.

“I never laughed.” Shianni slipped the stones into the pocket on her dress. “Leave this station in the next hour or I’ll play one of these over the speakers. When I know you’re back home, I’ll send you one. Maybe you’ll get the rest back when I know you’re behaving yourself.”

“Now that just seems fair to me. I would take the deal if I was you.” Dog jostled Braden playfully, almost knocking him to the ground.

“Fine,” Braden said, now scowling. “I never cared about any of this Inquisition shite anyway. I told Vaughan I didn’t want to come to this backwater space station.” 

After he left Shianni and Dog exchanged conspiratorial grins, bright and excited. Shianni’s smile faded as she looked at Jonaley’s unconscious body. “What are you going to do with him?”

“That’s a question. I may have fucked this right up.” Dog rubbed the back of his head roughly and shrugged. “Let’s get rid of the rest of these bloody stones and then maybe something nasty will come to me.”

 

“You’ll love the design of my apartment. I’ve spared no expense.” Vaughan squeezed Vivienne’s arm and smiled at her in a way that was less charming than he supposed. Cole could feel Vivienne’s disgust crawling up her spine like ants but she concealed it all under a polite, practiced flutter of her eyelashes.

“I’m sure it will be everything I can imagine,” she murmured. “But of course we must see to your health first, my dear. You suffered such a terrible upset in Compassion.”

“The whole event was really quite exaggerated. The boy has been slow to discipline despite my best efforts but his powers pose no real threat to a man with a strong will.” Vaughan turned his head to eye Cole with pity. Cole pressed himself harder into the corner of the elevator and hid his face in his hoodie. Compassion was swirling with fevered anticipation in him and it was a wonder that even a non-mage like Vaughan couldn’t feel the electricity of power in the air. 

Vivienne gave him a sharp look while Vaughan’s attention was diverted and Cole began to pull back on the threads of his magic, dampening the heavy field so that it wouldn’t catch the attention of every other mage on the station. She returned her face to bland intrigue the moment Vaughan turned back to her. “I’m sure you’ve done your best.”

“Well, perhaps between the two of us, we’ll be able to make something of him.” Vaughan laughed and sighed when the elevator dinged to a stop. “Now let’s get this little formality out of the way.”

The bioengineering lab was fairly crowded as they walked in but Harritt nodded to them immediately. He touched Dagna’s shoulder as she continued to enthusiastically describe an experiment to an amused Scout Harding. Dagna turned around and slapped a professional smile over her genuine one.

“Mr. Kendells. Hopefully we’ll see some improvement today.” Dagna gestured towards her workstation and Vaughan slid onto it. Cole stood back even as Vaughan gestured Vivienne closer.

“Indeed. I hope we can finish this up quickly. Madame de Fer has agreed to become my new mage and we really don’t have time to waste on these tests.”

Dagna laughed, almost a scoff in her surprise. “Mr. Kendells, I’ve told you before that the damage done to your neurological receptors was severe in that overload. I’m not really sure it’s wise to be planning on trying to make a new link so soon.”

The “or at all” hung heavy in the air, clear as words from the doubt on Dagna’s open, friendly face.

“Why don’t you just turn on one of your little machines and take a look at my receptors? I think you might be overestimating the damage Cole can do. He’s a support mage, for Maker’s sake.” Vaughan rolled his eyes at Vivienne who lifted her chin and gave Dagna an enigmatic smile.

“You’re the boss,” Dagna said between a tight smile. She slid the thin connectors onto Vaughan’s temples and switched on her screen. After a moment of fierce whirring, a long, flat line appeared on the screen. Dagna adjusted some switches and sighed, pursing her lips. “I hate to tell you this, Mr. Kendells, but I don’t see any improvement. The scarring is almost gone from your receptors but they’re not responding to anything. This ship is a hotbed for these little guys so they should be lighting up but I’ve got nothing.”

“How ridiculous. You must be reading it wrong. Look again,” Vaughan said imperiously. 

Dagna shrugged and fiddled with the controls some more before shaking her head. 

Cole came closer to him when Vaughan gestured impatiently at him. “Open the boy’s inhibitors and let him make a connection from his side.”

Dagna looked aghast and even Vivienne’s cool face rippled at this dangerous suggestion. Dagna spoke slowly, “That’s impossible, Mr. Kendells. Cole is already connected to his new handler. We’d have to break that connection and start again. I won’t do that with your receptors flat-lining. It would be too big of a strain on Cole even if it were possible.”

“The incompetence on this ship is staggering.” Vaughan struggled his way out of the bed and began moving towards the door. Cole followed, only half on instinct. Vivienne stayed where she was. Vaughan looked back at her. Cole could see him visible trying to restrain his temper. “Are you coming, Vivienne?”

“I’m not certain it would wise at this time, my dear. You seem to have a great deal to think about. I’ll come along later and we can discuss likely possibilities.” Vivienne sounded collected but this was the part she had been the most resistant to when she and Cole had discussed his plan. She didn’t want to leave him alone with Vaughan. Her concern had been touching, even if it was mostly a practical fear of him losing control. He shared her fears.

“Fine,” Vaughan said thinly and jerked his head at Cole.

They made it to the empty elevators and got the doors closed before Vaughan exploded. “What in the world are you playing at? We had a plan!”

“I changed my mind,” Cole said quietly. His every muscle was tense in anticipation. “I’m not helping you anymore.”

To his surprise Vaughan laughed. He wagged his finger at Cole. “I know what this is. Your pet’s made you feel special. You think you don’t need real supervision. I know better, boy. I know what you are.”

“Yes.” Cole lowered his head. He remembered the secret pride he’d felt the first time his magic had materialized and his early fantasies of using it to hurt the people who hurt him. Compassion had tempered his anger but it still coiled deep in his gut every morning when he woke up. “I’m a monster. But I won’t be one for you anymore. Compassion doesn’t like it and it’s not right.”

“What do you think that you’re accomplishing with this little stunt?” Vaughan slammed his fist into the button panel and the elevator began moving up. He came close to Cole, close enough that it made Compassion press against the thin skin of Cole’s body in readiness. Cole had to push hard against him to keep his protective magic from reacting. Vaughan’s breath was hot on his face. “I own you, you little fool. I own every black secret you’ve stolen from people.”

“Not anymore,” Cole murmured and for one moment as he looked up, he hesitated. It wasn’t reservations over what he was about to do. It was one last whisper in his mind that he could do so much more. 

But that didn’t have to be him. He could be different. Cole reached out and almost gently touched the tips of his fingers to Vaughan’s head. “Forget.” 

 

“Do you think people notice when you open the airlock?” Dog asked Shianni, prodding Jonaley with his foot. On the ground Jonaley moaned but didn’t regain consciousness. He must have hit him harder than he’d thought.

“We should throw him in the incinerator. I know a woman that can black out the cameras on the ship and she’d be happy to do it.” Shianni’s expression was over-eager and bright in that eagerness. Dog had distantly thought that she was pretty when he’d first met her but apparently bloodthirsty suited her much better. 

Dog whistled in admiration. “I like where your head’s at. But Cole don’t want this to be bloody.”

“I’d say that plan was over when you got caught by almost everybody that’s ever been in this room. You’re the worst thief I’ve ever met.” Shianni tossed the last pieces of the last stone down into the trash chute and beamed wider, patting the pocket on her dress. 

“You met many? I’m better at other things probably.” Dog rubbed his head and looked contemplative. “We need to figure this shit out quick though.”

“Who said anything about we?” Shianni actually laughed but she made no move towards the door. She joined Dog in contemplatively staring down at Jonaley. “Maybe we can tie him up and shove him in a guest room. You seem like the kind of guy that keeps rope around.”

“Only the fun kind. But I guess they might work in a pinch for him.” Dog shuddered at the thought. He didn’t want to say it but he really had fucked his end of things. Braden and Shianni knowing about the stones was one thing but Jonaley wouldn’t keep his mouth shut unless someone made him. Cole would have to fix the situation and that made Dog feel as bad as Jonaley would whenever he actually woke up.

“What are you doing in here? And what happened to Jonaley?” Vaughan looked pale and disoriented as he came through the bedroom door. He tried to focus his confused eyes on Jonaley’s body even as Cole slipped in around him. Cole blinked up at Dog, worried.

“We’ve been having an afternoon of it, boss. Too much of the good stuff, I’m afraid.” Dog grinned crookedly and staggered over until he was close enough to pull Cole into his arms. He let his mouth fall close to Cole’s ear. “Sorry, love, things didn’t go 100% to plan. But I got the basics squared away right. Your part go okay?”

Cole nodded and pulled away. He turned to Vaughan and lied without a hint of hesitation on his face. “Jonaley probably wanted to sleep on your bed again.”

“Ah, yes.” Vaughan rubbed his head. He appeared more baffled than annoyed. “He could never hold his head around alcohol. Makes him maudlin. Take him out of here and let me get some rest. I can’t think with all of you here.”

“Sounds good.” Dog nodded to Vaughan but before he could get to Jonaley, the man woke up. 

Jonaley hit the wall behind him with one fist as he jerked up, his mouth open and shaking in confused fury. He focused on Dog first and clawed up the wall halfway to his feet before he noticed Vaughan and then Cole.

Jonaley narrowed his eyes to thin slivers of hate and spit out, “You lying freak.”

Vaughan blinked in confusion as Jonaley struggled to his feet. Jonaley advanced on Cole quickly. He reached down with one hand to what Dog had felt was a ridiculous courtly affection, an elaborate dagger hanging too low in his belt to be much use in an unexpected fight.

“I’ll teach you how to treat your betters.” Before Jonaley could do more than set his hand on Cole’s collar he was thrown to the other side of the room with explosive force.

Cole looked as startled as anyone but he recovered first. Everyone looked at him in shock and he smoothed out the lines of his hoodie, nervous but flushing high on his cheeks in a way that Dog thought looked proud. Dog was certainly proud. And very intrigued. He hadn’t known that Cole could do anything as physical as that.

“Maker,” Shianni murmured. 

“This is all ridiculous.” Vaughan scowled. He stalked over to where Jonaley was struggling once again to his feet and yanked him up before turning to the others. “I want all of you out of my room immediately. I need to prepare for a special guest.” 

Then he blinked.

Then he blinked again. 

Then he looked over his shoulder to where Jonaley was gaping at him, his large face pale. Jonaley pulled the knife out of his back and followed Vaughan down to the ground. Everyone was too startled to move even as Jonaley uncertainly pressed his knife to Vaughan’s throat and pulled it slowly across.

“I loved you,” Jonaley said as Vaughan gasped for breath, blood seeping out from his neck in a river over his fingers. “You were the last person who could know the truth. Why did you ask him to betray me?”

Vaughan looked up at him, confusion the only expression on his draining face. Suddenly Jonaley was flung against the wall with that same explosive force and then kept pinned there, struggling and swearing furiously.

Cole came to Vaughan’s side and dropped heavily down to his knees, his hand floating uncertainly over his neck. Dog came over, setting himself between the struggling Jonaley and Cole. He nodded to Shianni. “You best get some help.”

“Go get Vivienne, please,” Cole said in a distant voice as he stared at his hands, the glow building slowly in them. 

Dog watched Shianni leave the room before he asked the question burning inside of him, “Are you actually going to save him?”

Cole watched as Vaughan twitched on the ground before growing still. He reached out with the glowing tips of his fingers to Vaughan’s throat and looked quietly determined. “I want to try.”

“He don’t deserve it, love.” 

“I know,” Cole said and went to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing the original Cole is tricky but fun. It makes me think about what parts of Compassion!Cole are unique to him because of what he is and what parts he borrowed along with Cole's face.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I ship Vivienne and Cassandra now. My goodness, can you imagine how hot that would be? Varric should write a book about it.

“Once again, please.” Vivienne tapped her staff against the stone floor and watched as Cole returned to the first step of the basic ice trap spell.

“Don’t you think he’s had enough practice today, Madame?” Dog asked. Cole didn’t have to strain the more powerful inhibitors Dagna had installed in him the previous week to know that Dog was worried about him. His concern gave Cole more of a boost than any amount of lyrium could.

“No. A first-year student at any Circle could do this spell while reciting the first five ingredients of a healing potion. Cole is a member of the Inquisition. The standards must be higher. Don’t you agree, my dear?”

“Yes, Vivienne.” Cole breathed out hard and began creating a small patch of ice. He’d shown little proficiency for any elemental magic but Vivienne thought that the effort was good practice. It strained parts of him that he’d never used before but he had to admit that it was helping him learn control. 

Finally the ice patch was big enough to slip up more than a confused possum and Vivienne nodded in approval. Cole glanced over at Dog, tired. “Can I have some water?”

“Excellent idea. It’s important to keep hydrated. Do fetch us some water and some strong tea, please. Again, Cole,” Vivienne handily ignored Dog’s surprised expression before he left the room, shaking his head. She watched Cole go through the movements of the spell and corrected his form until Dog came back. “Let’s take a moment.”

Cole joined Vivienne at the ornate table in her training room as Dog set the drinks on the table. Vivienne glanced up at Dog briefly. “Please give us some privacy, dear. Cole and I need to discuss some things.”

Dog blinked, looking down at Cole who nodded. He grinned crookedly to distract himself from his irritation, bringing his hand to the back of Cole’s neck and running his fingers down. “Sure. Got a stew to get to anyway.”

He leaned over and kissed Cole on the cheek before leaving.

Vivienne gave Cole a cool, approving smile when he offered her the tiny plate of sandwiches before taking one himself. Her training involved way more than magic and Cole wasn’t entirely sure how useful it all was. But he’d agreed to learning under her and he was determined to obey.

“My dear, we should discuss your handler.” Vivienne swept her leg up over her other one. “Let me be blunt. I’m not certain he is a proper match for you.”

“I like him,” Cole said as he bit into the sandwich. Vivienne looked disapprovingly at him until he finished chewing and then spoke again, “He won’t be here long anyway. He doesn’t like to stay in one place with people.”

“For someone with your impressive mental abilities, you are remarkably obtuse when it comes to other people.” Vivienne ran her eyes over him critically and sighed. “He’s infatuated with you, my dear.” 

Cole felt a sharp burst of warmth grow in his chest at her words. He’d wondered it, felt it along their connection, but he hadn’t wanted to think about it for too long. If Dog was infatuated, he knew that he was long gone. 

“I believe you would benefit under a firmer hand.” Vivienne brought her teacup to her mouth and took a measured sip that Cole tried to imitate. “Lady Pentaghast may be willing to try.”

“But she’s your new handler.” Cole wanted to take another of the little sandwiches but he thought that it might be rude. Instead he studied them as Vivienne took another small sip.

“Which is how I know how proficient she is.” Vivienne’s small was small and secret for reasons that had nothing to do with the web of diplomacy and politics that she loved. “It would be temporary, of course, until we found a suitable match. I have several long-term ideas.”

“No,” Cole said, firm. “I want to wait until Dog leaves on his own.”

“Very well, my dear,” Vivienne said. If she was disappointed or annoyed at his stubbornness, there wasn’t a hint of it on her face as she indicated that he should refill her cup. They sat a moment in silence. Vivienne thought that silence was more useful than words. 

“This looks cozy,” Lavellan said from the entrance to the training room. She strode in with Solas following several steps behind, his face calm and serene. He’d spoken to Cole only once since the incident and it had been a conversation so filled with riddles that Cole had to let Compassion figure it out before he responded. Lavellan stared at Cole and then turned her razor-sharp smile on Vivienne. “I wonder if I could borrow Cole for a moment.”

“Of course.” Vivienne stood. “I have a meeting with Lady Pentaghast to discuss ship modifications. Please feel free to have your discussion here if you’d like.”

“Thank you. I will.” Lavellan dropped into the seat that Vivienne left and reached for the plate of sandwiches. She took several and then lifted the top of the teapot to smell the brew before reaching down into her pocket and pulling out a flask. She winked at Cole as she added some amber liquid to the tea and then rolled her eyes back at Solas. “He’d never touch this otherwise. A good handler has to be crafty sometimes.”

“Indeed,” Solas said drily and poured them both a cup of the doctored tea.

“They’re finally coming to take that garbage out of my brig. Arl Kendells sure took his damn time considering Jonaley left his son a shem-sized doorstopper.” Lavellan’s words were flippant but her eyes were fierce on Cole’s down-turned face as she spoke. “If Vivienne hadn’t gotten you when she did, Arl Kendells wouldn’t even have that.”

“I did my best,” Cole said, lowering his head. Bodies were easier to fix than minds. He’d learned that with his sister but he was grateful that she hadn’t turned out like Vaughan. He’d only gone to see him once since the incident, peering at his still body through the glass windows. Everything that had been Vaughan was gone. He still didn’t know how he felt about that. 

“Nobody is blaming you,” Solas said in a soft, measured way.

Lavellan waved her hand. “Of course not. It’s not your fault that Jonaley went bug-fucking crazy when Kendells asked Vivienne to be his mage. Poor bastard can barely remember doing it. If Vivienne hadn’t been there, we might never have learned what actually happened.”

There was a long, meaningful silence in the room before Lavellan leaned over the table.

“The Arl wanted to talk with the people that were involved in the incident but I told him just to talk to Vivienne. I mean, you were just there to try to clean up the mess so I don’t really see the point in interrupting your new studies. Unless you have something new to say about what happened?”

“No,” Cole said quietly. He never would. They had all agreed, gathered around Vaughan’s bloody body as Jonaley struggled against the wall. Vivienne had been the one to concoct the story that they would tell and had even been the one to alter Jonaley’s memories of the event. Cole hadn’t known that she had that sort of power but he’d been achingly grateful at the time. He’d been so tired from what he’d already done that he’d slept for days. 

“Yeah, Viv said that you wouldn’t.” Lavellan leaned back in her chair and pursed her lips. “I guess I’m just going to have to assume that everything’s been taken care of that needs to be. It’s almost like I don’t even need to be here at all.”

“You should be grateful your friends are so competent,” Solas said, his tone measured.

“Don’t lecture me, old man. I hate it when he talks like that,” Lavellan said that last part in a conspiratorial way to Cole. “Like he’s the Keeper and I’m some pig-tailed kid sitting around the fire.”

Her grin suggested that she felt otherwise as she gestured Solas out of her seat. “I’ve got to go deal with a mountain of paperwork. Maybe consider coming to talk to me if you need something. I am the leader of this Inquisition; it’s not just the hand thing. Right?”

“I will,” Cole said and when he looked up he was caught in Solas’ gaze. It seemed warm and placid but he could feel the pointed worry of teeth on his neck, gentle but firm. One of the less labyrinthine things he’d said during their puzzling conversation had made it very clear that he wasn’t pleased that Cole had let himself be hurt protecting him. 

“We are here for you, Cole,” Solas said. “You don’t have to do things alone.”

Cole nodded and watched them leave. He hesitated a moment before taking another one of the sandwiches from the table. He had a session next and he never felt like eating afterwards. Vivienne might assume that Lavellan took the extra and not scold him.

 

Cole tapped his fingers against the buttons of the elevator and leaned back against the wall. He felt translucent after the things he’d said during his session, liquid inside around Compassion’s comforting warmth. 

Talking to Mother Giselle wasn’t what he’d thought that it would be. He’d assumed that she would demand a recitation of his sins before she went to Vivienne and told her that he was too dangerous to be allowed his freedom. At the very least he’d thought that she would be firm with him that he should put his trust in the Maker’s will, like the sisters in the small system his father had hidden them in after his powers had manifested.

In reality she demanded nothing from him during their sessions. During the first session he’d said little, frozen in apprehension as she’d asked him quiet questions. He’d given her a few things, words that he figured she had to already know from Vivienne, and had been placated when she’d received them with a serene face.

After that he’d tried giving her a little more, certain that if he didn’t she would eventually grow frustrated with him. And he’d discovered that it felt—not good certainly—but freeing to talk about the things he’d just been quiet about for years.

It should have been exhausting. But afterwards he always felt a strange sort of energy, tense and eager at the same time. He didn’t completely understand it. The only thing he knew was that he wanted to get back to his apartment and back under Dog’s hands, wide and warm on every part of him.

The elevator dinged and came to a stop. Cole peeled himself off of the wall and started down the hallway. They had left Vaughan’s apartment and returned to their temporary one, after Shianni and Dog had trashed the interior—all in the name of making Jonaley’s attack look more impressive. Lavellan wanted them up closer to the other members of the Inner Circle but until Hawke and the Warden took their people off the station, space was hard to find.

Cole didn’t mind. He liked the privacy of their little apartment and the comfort of the sweet memories he’d made in it. Even just walking through the door eased a bit of his post-session tension while simultaneously driving up his eager anticipation more.

Dog was in the kitchen, humming absently as he cooked. The stew smelled good but Cole wasn’t hungry for food. He walked past the table where Dog’s practice cards were stacked neatly. They’d begun a new game with them after Cole had been fitted with a new inhibitor. It was a game that was less about guesswork and mental connection and more about acting out what scenes they saw. Cole reached out as he passed and picked up a card. Just a brief glance at it made his entire body tense in arousal.

Cole wrapped his arms around Dog from behind and pressed his face against his back. Dog laughed and craned his head back.

“Startled me, love, that’s dangerous to do to a man over a boiling pot,” Dog scolded and lifted up one of his hands to kiss his knuckles.

“Sorry,” Cole murmured to his shirt and Dog laughed again. He twisted around in Cole’s arms and wrapped his hands loosely around his hips.

“No worries, least I didn’t have my hands on a knife.” Dog leaned forward as though to kiss him and then paused. “How was the mother today?”

“Good,” Cole said and then pressed his mouth eagerly up against him. He didn’t like to talk about his sessions, not even with Compassion. He talked enough during them. And right now the last thing he wanted to do was talk.

“Mmmm,” Dog hummed appreciatively into his mouth. His hands slipped down and around, cupping Cole’s ass and pulling him against him. “Tell you what’s good, love. This sweet arse of yours is good.”

Cole kissed him harder, pressing his tongue to his and moaning when Dog slid against him, slick and sinuous. He made a disappointed sound when Dog pulled away.

“Hey now, don’t start that, we should get some food in us. Supper’s almost ready.”

“I’m not hungry,” Cole said quickly and tried for another kiss.

Dog smirked a little and held him back. “Not hungry? That’s not what I’m seeing. I’m seeing a pretty thing all hungry for something I’ve got here.”

“I want to do this,” Cole said. He pressed the card to Dog’s chest and watched as his eyes darkened in arousal at the image. He wasn’t surprised when Dog pulled him close again and kissed him, rough and thorough.

“That’s a good one, sweet. Nice and filthy,” Dog said in a low growl. “You’re gonna let me do that to you tonight? Let me do all those filthy things to your pretty body? And then maybe you can show me how good you can do that to me?”

“Yes,” Cole moaned and pulled on him. “Please, now. I want it.”

Dog pushed him against the counter and lifted him up. “Gotta do it then. Nothing for it but to give you exactly what you want.”

Cole ran his fingers through Dog’s hair as he pulled his legs apart, dropping down to his knees to press his mouth to the inside of Cole’s clothed thigh. Cole moaned low in his throat and then pulled at his hair when Dog stopped and looked up at him.

“But we should eat first, love. You need to eat with your medicine.”

Cole huffed out a disappointed sound. The surgery to replace his inhibitor had been mild but Dagna had been insistent that he take her regiment of pills. He didn’t like them, didn’t like the way they made his head feel floaty and strange. Sometimes he preferred the pain but Vivienne was firm on that front and it was a rare area where Dog was in complete agreement. Dog pursed his lips before turning his head back against his thigh. 

“Tell you what,” Dog murmured in-between light kisses against his leg. “Why don’t I skip to my desert right here and then we have a little supper. Then I’ll have all kinds of energy to make those nice things happen like they should.”

Cole considered it a moment and then nodded. It was a good compromise. Having a partner was about compromise. Dog grinned up at him and leaned forward.

 

“Does it bother you?” Cole asked, much later into the darkness of their bedroom.

“Nothing’s bothering me at the moment,” Dog said with a chuckle and pressed a shaky kiss to Cole’s neck. “Can’t feel enough of my body right now to be bothered.”

“That’s what I meant.” Cole hesitated, unsure now that the haze of his furious arousal had dissipated. “Does it bother you that I always want this? Sex?”

He was surprised that the aching desperate desire that Dog pulled from him didn’t seem to have an end. It worried him a little. He’d never had these appetites before, huge and ravenous, and he worried that it was a sign that he had learned something from Vaughan. Bottomless greed without concern for the needs of other people.

Dog seemed surprised but his expression turned to a wide smile before he rose up over Cole on his elbows. “You think it could bother me that you’re so hungry for my prick when you come home that you can’t think straight? You know better.”

“You don’t,” Cole paused and then continued, “you don’t have to do these things because I want them.”

“I get to do these things because we want them,” Dog corrected and began kissing down his neck. “No reason to look to me for complaints on this. If I didn’t think Her Worship would object, I would take you off with me somewhere dark and quiet and far away where we could do this all the time.”

“You would?” Cole closed his eyes and tried to feel out. The inhibitor worked as well as Vivienne said it would but he could still feel the hum of Dog’s emotions against him. He felt sincere.

“Maker, that would be nice. Could spend years just like this, not worried about any of this war shite, just you and me and Compassion makes three.” Dog suddenly bit lightly on Cole’s collarbone and shuddered when he moaned. “You’re getting me going again here, sweet, I’m hoping you was planning for that.” 

Cole curled his hand around Dog’s neck. He could hear Vivienne’s words rattling around in his head. “Do you…like being here with me?”

Dog paused his explorations and looked up. He opened his mouth and then closed it firmly before crawling back up Cole’s body. He slid his hand against his cheek and leaned over to kiss him, light and gentle, before pulling back. “Yeah. Think that’s safe to say here. I like being with you so much I’m hoping to keep you for a while.”

“You’re not leaving?” Compassion roused himself from his corner to join in on the question.

“Not unless you tell me to.” Dog coughed sheepishly and rubbed his head. He nodded to the practice cards lying on the nightstand. “Still got a deck of those to get through.”

“I want to do this one next,” Cole said, feeling so happy that he barely knew how to contain the emotion. He picked up a card he’d been keeping in the drawer to look at secretly.

Dog looked at it and his eyes widened. “That’s beautiful, love, but that’d be hard to try just the two of us.”

“Yes,” Cole murmured, letting the bottomless well of want swell up in him again as he run his hands down Dog’s broad back. He’d have to trust that Dog would tell him if it wasn’t okay. “We’ll need help.”

 

Space was wide and beautiful. Cole peered out through Compassion’s window and let the soft hum of the spiritship surround him. Ahead of them Hawke’s ship was spinning around in a way that looked gleeful, flitting to the other ships in his fleet before shooting ahead to buzz around the Warden’s warship. Cole wondered if Hawke and his crew had switched partners again before they’d set out. The ship Isabela handled always seemed eager to move.

The Warden’s ships looked more organized even though they were all wildly different. Cole watched Faith slip behind the others and he said a farewell to Rhys and Evangeline in his head. He would always miss them when they were gone but the pain of separation was not as fierce this time. They were his friends. He’d see them again.

Vitality flew past Compassion, its heavy vents pouring smoke out into space like the dragon it looked like it was. Iron Bull caught his eye as they flew above them and he winked, slow and deliberate. Dorian waved languidly and Cole waved back. Dog chuckled in embarrassment and Cole didn’t have to look back to know that he was waving as well.

“All right, people, let’s try to get to the Frostback Basin without a fuss,” Lavellan said through the intercom system. Wisdom rose up in front of the other Inquisition ships. It should have looked like an antique next to the powerful lines of Command and Vitality but anybody looking at the fleet would know that it was the leader ship. “Last one there has to wrestle Storvacker.”

“Who’s Storvacker?” Dog asked behind Cole and then paused a moment before speaking again, “Really, they keep a bear?”

“They don’t keep her. She’s their friend,” Cole said, nonplussed that Compassion had answered Dog before he could. He had felt a sort of strange jealousy before at their close connection but he was working through it with Mother Giselle. “She’s very nice. Her fur is soft.”

“I think I’ll take your word on it,” Dog said and laughed. 

Cole smiled small and followed Vitality out. Vaughan and Jonaley were gone from the keep, back to Denerim. He wasn’t sure if Vaughan would ever wake up. He was coming to terms with the idea that it was okay if he didn’t want him to. Jonaley would go to prison, which did upset him late at night when memories of hunger clawed at his belly and he wondered if he should have just killed him to be merciful. But whenever he felt that he would take comfort in Dog’s arms around him and remember that he didn’t have to be okay with that either. 

“My sister wants to meet you,” Cole said, which was partially true. He didn’t know if Bunny would remember their conversation about Dog by the time they got to her but she would be happy to see them both all the same.

“Oh?” Dog said lightly. He felt pleased. “Can’t wait to meet the littler rabbit, love.”

“I can’t wait either,” Cole said and reached out into the wide reaches of space. It wasn’t empty at all. It was filled with billions of voices, all loud and questioning and unique. Compassion wanted to help them all, one by one.

Cole thought that he might just give that a shot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone that read this. It was pretty damn self-indulgent and I had fun writing it. Now I get to work on finishing another, longer series, while constantly side-tracking myself to writing solo PWPs. Good fucking times.


End file.
